


Nigelisms/Kaeciliusims

by nigellecter



Series: Nigelisms [1]
Category: Charlie Countryman (2013), Doctor Strange (2016), Hannibal (TV), Hannibal Lecter Series - All Media Types, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angst, Blood and Gore, Bloodletting, Bottom Nigel, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death, Drug Use, Established Relationship, F/M, Father-Daughter Relationship, First Time, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Sexual Content, Incest, Light BDSM, M/M, Oral Sex, Psychological Trauma, Sexual Content, Supernatural Elements, Twincest, Werewolf Nigel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-07
Updated: 2018-03-08
Packaged: 2018-05-18 19:34:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 162
Words: 103,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5940559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nigellecter/pseuds/nigellecter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Inspired by threads with various muses. (Main muse; Nigel from Charlie Countryman, with second muses including Kaecilius from Doctor Strange and Galen Erso from Rogue One).<br/>Drabbles, headcanons, poems, In-character dialogues, whatever that strikes my mood.<br/>Dedicated to all of my lovely collaborative rp partners.<br/>Errors are my own. Unbeta'ed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Based on this headcanon: Nigel takes Gabi to get her first tattoo. She is very nervous, but this means a lot to her since playing cello is her life. Nigel gave her the idea when he told Gabi that the curve of her body reminded him of the instrument she loves so much. Also Nigel secretly is obsessed with the dimples on Gabi’s lower back and the f hole tattoos highlights the dimples so well.

Cocooned under the duvet as their shared rhythm simultaneously throbs against coeur to coeur, Nigel’s calloused fingertips caress the cleft of Gabi’s lower back, lush like silk, pale like the most fine piece of alabaster and pearl. Sheen of sweat over his tattoo as the unkempt ashen rumples against the pillowcase, he pushes a lock away with the tilt of his face. Still breathless as he buries his nose against the curve of Gabi’s neck, fingers draw the shape of the f hole of the cello, idle yet purposeful. The other wound around her slender neck, as he would do with the string instrument.

He can conjure up the most vivid picture, his fingers playing the instrument on her sensuous body, each and every night as Gabi had once done for him as he recuperated from the incapacitating injury. Not too long ago, where they have shared the language of corporeality the first time before moving in together.

“I’m imagining you as the fucking cello, you’d fucking rock that tattoo.”

 _You’d definitely fucking own it._ Nigel’s lips amusedly curls, it isn’t difficult to imagine those two f holes. He already had a surprise in his sleeve. His own one on the crook of the elbow. He’d be constantly reminded of their serendipitous encounter, where they showed an infinite trust upon each other with unspoken acknowledgements. The handgun in Gabi’s messenger bag, the bow in his hand, clutched like the most precious thing in the world.

Surrounded by Nigel’s heavy musk and sweat, Gabi’s head tilts, a curious raise of eyebrow as she hesitantly exhales. An imperceptible sigh, but noticeable against Nigel’s sun-kissed skin, sheen of sweat accentuating his thatch of silvery chest hair. A tattoo of the instrument near her spine. Her bedrock, her everything, her whole life. It would definitely mean a lot and define her as a person.

 _Nigel’s healer, an angel. Ever the total package._  

“I haven’t thought of getting one. That would mean a lot to me, but..”

As a fly trapped in a heavy stickiness of the honeyed glaze, Nigel’s firm hand continues to massage through Gabi’s lower back, bouncing his pelvis to send her petite body upward, to meet her blue-gray gaze of the tempestuous sky before the hurricane. So intense, yet grounding and secure. Her gaze brings security, just like her melodious music had brought him his flesh and blood, the substantiality to his vigor. He would etch every single note along the crease of his brain. He would occasionally hum the melodious tunes to her ears and Gabi loved it. Not so secretly.

“We could do it tomorrow. The first thing when the tattoo parlor opens. I know a guy who does fucking awesome job.”

A gentle peck on Gabi’s cheek as fingers curl around the duvet, encasing them together, still in the afterglow as he amusingly chuckles. Nigel’s chin tilts as voluptuous lips meet Gabi’s, softly gliding, then grows ravenous as he devours her whole, as if he had no tomorrow.

* * *

 

The first thing in the afternoon, Nigel discreetly sends an associate of his, an established tattooist who had been renowned for intricate linework in black and white. Already having sent the cello’s design, the design looks ornate and angular, fitting for his personality as he lets the figment of his imagination unfold across the sun-kissed skin, over the protruding veins which had been perforated myriads of times with syringes full of painkillers. No more of that. He would become an embodiment of a kiss with mortality, resurrected by her serenade.

Hands entwined with each other’s, Nigel hears the familiar oscillation of the tattoo machine, the whirring sound as the ink rapidly and repeatedly deposits between the epidermis of the skin via a needle. He reminiscences the time when he got his pin-up girl tattoo. A drifter in Romania, in different vicinities outside Bucharest before he had settled in his current flat. A desperate man who had wanted a person to test-run his two coil tattoo contraption. Over the years, the shaded areas faded and the outline unclear, it wouldn’t hurt to knock two birds with one stone.

A bump of the shoulder as Nigel greets the associate. “Travis. Meet darling Gabi, my girl. Gabi, that’d be the one who would be tattooing for both of us.” Words drawl more than usual as his character-defining husky and low voice rattle, a pivot dips on his cheek as another hand gestures Gabi to do the same, but Nigel doesn’t let go of his entwined fingers. A quick tug of his arm soon follows as soon as Gabi does her own greeting, her petite frame encased around Travis’, similar build, except his skin is more closer to Gabi’s with tattoos covering his whole torso under threadbare t-shirt.

Knowing the possessiveness exude and envelope Nigel’s aura, Gabi cannot help but to smirk at that, futilely hiding the blush tinting her cheeks pink. She doesn’t have to turn around to register Nigel’s usual expression, a disapproving lift of the brow along with that lick he does inside the mouth as it swipes the back of his teeth. “I’m sure he’ll take a good care of us.” Upturned gaze transfixed against Nigel’s stormy hazel, Gabi’s lips curl up as a hand caresses against Nigel’s smooth jaw, fingers over the carotid as she feels the ink underneath, along with the palpitation of the jutted veins underneath.

“Don’t get jealous, Nigel.” An arm circles around Nigel’s lean waist, a playful motion akin to serpent’s surreptitious movement.

“I can’t fucking help it and I’m doing it first so I can watch you get yours.” Feigning a pout, eyes crease as he stretches his neck, unfastening three upper buttons on his shirt as he flops down on the reclined chair, a hand poised against the plush and smooth leather.

“Maybe I should lose the fucking shirt altogether.” Flashing a mischievous grin, becoming Cheshire as he cackles. Gabi merely slaps Nigel’s still clothed chest as she roughly tugs the collar, along with hefty strands of his chest fluff. Eyes playfully narrowed, she relishes Nigel’s reaction. Travis bursts out to laugh as he slaps on the rubber gloves after washing his hands.

“Don’t fucking push it, Nigel.”  


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A little poem I wrote thinking about the end scene of the movie.

My heart’s content lies coordinates,  
                   an _uncharted_ territory,  
only accessible with your -  
imprints of hearts,   
a trace of your arms,   
your body with my fingers,  
stretched open.  
efflorescent petals scattered around the   
bosom of your blooming flush.

  
You are the **anchor** to my wretched body;     
        an incorrigible soul to match my own,   
locked in an abysmal well of your gray-blue,  
along with the spiral of love caught by surprise.   
The love illumination lights my darkest corners of my mind   
filled with cobwebs and darkened specters   
of previous chapters of my life,   
as I try to push you the depths of the ocean,  
a radiant gleam of gold contours and dissipates the tightly shut doors.

  
With a simplistic kiss of Love,   
         a single reminder of our ephemeral joy   
transforming into a vessel of everlasting love,  
Psyche hurtles through the blackness and coldness  
all those constellations and exchanges of breaths we have shared   
materializes and glows like coals in a bonfire,  
breathtaking and beautiful, the clash of two auras   
the gravitational wave of a supernova   
becomes a piercing stardust, escaping corporeality.

  
An exquisitely enlightening,   
                         a flowing love rooted at the deepest level as   
the soul forged and soldered in **flesh  
** and **blood  
** and **skeletons  
** fast and fades away as a swipe of a finger.  
I will be reciting the poem   
from the tip of my tongue.   
As I take the walk of a certitude.

_**Te iubesc în veci.** _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *I love you, forever and ever.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A thought about blind Nigel.

I become prey of my own thoughts,  
shackled and caged behind the eyelids, sewn shut  
                by the wicked hot gleaming silver.  
The lingering dewiness of the saltiness  
pushes through the back of the hazel

the naked emotion pours out in putrefying constituent   
along comes the memories  
leaking out in the absence of a sense  
             as molten lava signals the imminent calamity.  
The boiling heart effervesces over    
as the brimming moisture turns into a silent waterfall

echoing through the verticals of the ribs  
hope about to be devoured by _wretchedness_.  
                    **ajar** and arching, **bruising** and breaking.    
the dead silence isn’t a complete mutiny,

as mundaneness trail unworthy as meaningless words,  
strewn around like an abandoned piece of shattered mug cup.  
I lay on an expanse of unrolled canvas  
and the entire galaxy full of stardust and asteroids  
along with sinister spread of crimson blanket  
painted across by your lips, your touch, your whispers and adherence of 

**your body**. 

even then,  
nothing could offer the deserved _solace_  
as much as a bed of whirling caramel,  
the abstract strokes of the unfathomable depth  
becomes an eroding bluff  
as I plummet into an eternal anguish.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Person B knowing they’re undoubtedly about to die within the next few seconds, likely from the gaping wound they’re bleeding out from. Instead of calling for help, they phone Person A and carry on a casual conversation as if nothing is wrong, making sure to mention how much they love them before their time runs out.

The searing hot trail draws upon his left side, a sinister premonition as the haunting memories creep up once again. Not daring to make any sound, he doesn’t concentrate to make out the assailant’s face this time - No anger becomes the driving force as an unlikely wave of calm washes over him. As the excruciatingly agonizing pain shoots to mirror myriads of fish gaping for the air that simply isn’t there, the familiar heat of the rising tide pushes against the back of his tightly pinched eyelids. 

Hastily moving fingers, trembling with coiled exertion, veins push upward against the epidermal as he fetches his cell from the pocket of his jeans. The spilling blood amplifies along with each precious breaths. His strained heart squeezes harder as the percussion of the ebb and flow beat like frenetic angry waves. 

The streaks of red painting and seeping through the fiber of white button-up shirt, his arched back thuds against the chipped walls. As flaky and bleak as predestined, sealed fate. The expiration date already stamped on his soul, about to be plunged into the gates of limbo. 

Pushing the quick dial #1 with blood-stained finger, the thumbprint presses with determination and he is reminded of the night when he had kissed her under the light of a thousand stars. That night when their relationship took a decisive turn. As his pitch-black life with his immutable soul, fueled by hatred, the unconquerable unapproachable-ness of him reduced to mere ashes. 

His back adhered to the wall, fingers splay over the peeling paint. Pallid white begins to permeate the sun-kissed skin as he impatiently listens to the dial. Mentally signalling her to pick up the damn phone. Each second stretching to eon, the bludgeoning blurriness accompanies as the atmosphere reduces to whirling funnel of black hole, his wobbly legs signify the point of no return. Beyond the sublime wrath and looming tears, all the good recollections surface through his pensive, even the shaded, haunting memories making him unafraid. He might wince and scowl as he succumbs to the natural tsunami, the pain escalating along with the deluge continuing to mar and taint the skin.

After five rings, Gabi picks up, and he cannot help his hitching breath, brimming over as the column of heated air boils over deep from his throat. 

Toes curling inside his oxfords, heels forcefully push against the sinister puddle of crimson. Gleaming like black opal under the dimmed basement, the only source of illumination the flickering light swaying overhead. As weak and flimsy as he is right now.

With a fluttering breath, he blurts out his greeting.

“Hello, gorgeous, Gabi.”

Exhaling long before finding serenity in his voice, remembering that gorge, that epiphany that hits him like a butterfly effect. The galloping as he rides the chariot. Uncontrollable, wobbling, leaving him breathless. That metaphor continues to etch into the cracks and crevices of his brain. The crisp air of the autumn, gentle and cool air quenching the heat from the bed of coal, still continuing to burn within him now. 

Breaking into a sweat as a trail lingers around the nape of his neck, around his plastered ashen locks, the clammy heat surfaces more by the second. A gentle flutter humming through the gash like reverberating engine of the motorcycle beneath him. Then, as he speaks, the emotion plucked from the memory turns into the rowdy groundling, the upheaval of emotion urging him to throw up with uncharted sensations. 

“I’m at the airport. A fucking business trip. I won’t make home for a week.” 

Accompanied with a swooshing pulse of his heart pounding against his ears, he whispers the words out, not giving Gabi time to respond. Blurting out whatever thought surfaces, he continues. 

“Remember what I told you before. With you, it feels like I’m riding a chariot. Galloping and barreling through the sky and nothing will be impossible, even though sometimes it sends my fucking legs to wobble. Running with slackened reins and even though the future is uncontrollable and unpredictable, the things you do to me makes me to fucking forget all that.” 

As the lethargy sets in as the tiger slumps down with the tranquilizer’s chemical coursing through his body, his quickened pulse begins to slow down to a hum and he fights it. Imagining he is looking down at the eroding bluff, on the bike with his darling Gabi, as the orange glow widens over the horizon with her flesh pressed against his back. Arms wound across his broad chest, feeling that shared breathes, exchanged pulses, all the echoes of thousands of silent conversations. A trail of smoke curling along with the moist, early morning air. 

With shadows shifting and crawling, fingers slacken around the iPhone as he hears Gabi continuing to call his name. 

“I have to go, darling. See you later.” 

Through heavy lashes, hot salty tears brim over to fall directly over the fading screen, where the picture of them at the club stares at him. A faint ghost of a dimple etched on his cheek as an unreadable expression surfaces, something between a smile and his typical smirk, lips slightly ajar, he wishes to become a star. Something like a North Star to guide her along.   


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nigel Headcanon || Part 1.

There had been enough curve balls thrown at him since the birth. Smaller and weaker one out of two identical twins. He wasn’t even named Nigel when he had been born. Always restless, impatient and active, there were many times when he spent away from aloof and distant twin. Seeking company along the flutter of thickets and glittering leaves falling over his head from intricate webs of entwined branches and twigs, the landscape painted barren white with an inevitable reminder of comfort and escapism. Then, there had been two back-to-back avalanche that would entrap him in a deep depression, the harbinger of one of his ‘moods’ that would haunt him until his imminent demise. His parents’ untimely death that seeped crimson and etched his body in an irresistible fate of blood, coming in deluges. Splutters and splatters, the warmth and pungent bitterness surging and permeating through his veins.

Then, the sinister premonition landed him even closer to death, diaphanous orbs bleak and unblinking. His own blood erupting and bubbling over the brim of the corner of his eyes after a hit-and-run accident that would leave him in a coma for four days. With a healing caress of fortuitous graze, he had cheated what it seemed like a sealed expiration date on his life, or even worse, avoiding the fate of living like a patched-up, Frankenstein-like monster, riddled with contempt for the world inside and out. After moving up the hierarchy of the underground of the most cultural and historical city in the eastern Europe had been swift. Merely thirty, he already had few body counts behind his name. People who had owed him money and favor as his trade expanded to firearms from drugs. Having killed once meant that he had gotten a joy for it. That adrenaline rush coming from the blood-lust. Every time he would bleed or let others bleed after fights that left him injured, it was his way of retreating from the world. He had always said he’d bring others to the limbo, hastening their way there so that they can descent into oblivion. In the blink of an eye, everything would turn into blood.

In a way, his own life had been spiraling downward into abyss, a bottomless pit and a chain reaction of addictions. The drug had made him to clutch onto the fleeting and transient euphoria, the stimulant had made him to crave a depressant, which meant he would binge drink on cheap hooch and whiskey, sometimes straight up vodka. Small bags became countless luggage, they became containers of shipments in an instant. There were other opposite gang members and factions who sought an easy money, killing off his own associates and him in the process. His ruthless and dauntless methods were respected, as well as despised, which meant that he had a loyal pack of followers, as well as deceivers who would eventually stab him in the back. Occasionally working as one of the most sought after bartender and getting into many fights that earned him various degrees of scars scattered around his torso, he had been working as a bouncer, more in front, more prone to violence and he ended up garnering attention from the gang. That’s when he had met Darko. The person who had the most influence in the club scene, who had owned all the clubs in Bucharest. With Darko’s ruthless and relentless personality and Nigel’s melee and firearm skills that impressed many associates as well as his enemies, he never had a friend. All he had were associates and acquaintances that he had brushed his shoulders with and his arch-nemesis and enemies who had either feared or envied, or both.

Taking a watch at the dock where he would get his arranged shipments of first-grade coke and firearm enough to bring the whole metropolitan city down, his dilated and penetrating orbs glisten under the moonlight, along with the rippling waves of the shore, glimmering with golden glows. Never letting his guard down, his hand brushes against the hammer of the gun, another hand brushing the front barrel of the gun. The trace of gunpowder and specks of blood still under his fingernails as he watches the vicinity like a vulture circling around to spot for its prey. From all the injuries he had sustained over the course of two decades, his rough, toned and sun-kissed skin had innumerable scars. Some visible, some faded with time and almost imperceptible under the naked eyes. His position required to be truculent at times, having a thirst for blood never hurt as he wasn’t afraid to look anyone in their eyes as his impassive face killed with no emotion whatsoever. After all the occurrences, his fortified walls had been impenetrable. Not giving in to what he considered to be weaknesses. No tears, breaking down, smile, even his characteristic smirk. Only his eyes told his emotions. Cold, sangfroid as his brooding eyes glared as the orbs penetrated the others. His usual effervescent and jovial, bantering as he had once did completely disappeared. Until he was at his house, as dark and closed off as his mind had been.

As his other associates made a quick work of disposing others and killing them, he merely hears the swooshing sound of the gunshot through the silencers, his own locked in place as he swaggers lazily, his long and slow strides heavy against the graveled shore. In a flash of light, the skin on his left side separates and a gush of blood spills out, wetting his damp white button-down in an instant. A gleam in his eye halting as his irises, unwavering against the assailant, trails the fleeting path that the other takes, who he would ruthlessly kill later after he recuperates. When his eyes trail up to the dot, fleeing the scene with the exhaust pipe puffing thick white fume as his unblinking eyes slowly lose its focus, his legs falter as he his blood drenched side presses against the paint-chipped cold metal. Eyes still penetrative and intense, he makes a figure walking right by his side as his hand searches to flick open the pocket knife inside his right side. One of his associates finds Nigel slouched, his knees hitting the ground with a thud against the heavy lock of the container. “Take me to my house on my bike and drag your fucking ass over here asap to watch those goddamn firearms. Have the others divide the fucking coke and carry them inside my office.” Sweat drenching his face as his chin digs into his chest, the searing pain shoots up as smoldering fire escapes from his core, the spark leaving him in small amounts.

The drive to his flat is the longest fifteen minutes Nigel had to ever face. Clutching his side as his makeshift tourniquet helps to bring flayed skin spilling blood onto the side of his bike, crimson chrome of the body painting with his own as he fights to hold onto his consciousness. In a trance, his shoulders slouch and his head droops, like the willow tree branches blowing frantically as his tight hold on the associate’s waist is what keeps him from falling off the speeding bike. He doesn’t make any sounds, as his teeth clenches, biting his lower lip to keep him from groaning out. his pallid face drains the little vitality he has left. As if the third time had been the charm, through the fluctuations of zenith and nadir, when he had been gutted like a fish, literally clutching the viscera as he began the excruciatingly agonizing journey towards the long road of recovery ahead of him. His ankles shackled as he sleepwalked through the vast expanse of his dank flat.  

Having been helped to make it into his dimly lit house still filled with the lingering smoke of the cigarettes, the unventilated room feels foggy and damp. His associate helping him to supply morphine to get rid of the initial excruciating searing pain. Nigel’s trembling hand manages to crudely stitch the laceration up, nowhere near enough to hold up, but just enough for the bleeding to stop. Drifting off to sleep, he doesn’t wake up until the evening the day after, his usually intense hazel eyes liquid and blank, set around the ceiling. The stifling pain spreading through him like a wildfire, his already distorted and separated edge between the stitches have turned deep red, the rest of him turned sickly gray as he looks better suited to lay inside the morgue, waiting for an autopsy than to having been rendered incapacitated on his steel framed twin-sized bed.    

One particularly stifling afternoon, still laying on his filth of caked blood, soiled sheets strewn about the foot of the bed rusty scent surrounding his filthy body as the sweat had been dripping all over his naked torso, he hears the classical orchestra music play in the cafe beneath his flat. The humid breeze of August carrying what seems to be an elixir. His last ample supply or morphine wearing off. Half-eaten pizza box just within his reach for him to grab an especially greasy looking slice of sausages with onions and peppers, he doesn’t savor the food’s taste, he chews mindlessly to keep his body’s fuel in check. It has become a requirement and a chore.  

Hearing the cello music almost every day around the same time, the wounded animal locked in the cage recovers as he gains strength a bit by bit. There would be the time he’s just recovered enough to head down to the cafe and listen to the music as he watches the young woman play, with the strong and bitter coffee in front of him as he waits for his favorite Romanian traditional soup,  _ ciorba de perisoare _ , pork and rice meatball soup with a generous amount of fresh lemon squeezed in. The only few soup he could make out of scratch, but no one had it authentic and as good tasting as the downstairs cafe did.

The cafe’s interior is quiet. Small and quaint. Majority of people gathered around the outside in a semi-circle as the composition reaches its climax. The young woman’s lithe frame moving along with the bow’s movement. Judging by the charged emotion placed on the music, along with the woman’s concentrated face, slightly furrowed as fingers glide across the largest string instrument. Her repertoire had been the similar, occasionally changing from more traditional classical to more uplifting modern piece, but his untrained ear could still figure out that she had been trained more classically. Surrounding himself in the whirl of the bitter strong coffee with his leather jacket draped over the chair, as soon as the playing ends and a sporadic applause echoes through the interior of the cafe, he swings his crossed legs apart. He had been sitting near the front window as the late summer light lights his caramel golden hair. Sipping the remaining coffee and walking towards the young woman, he lights the fresh cigarette and takes a puff. His hand brushing against the healed side, the stitches still intact. “Your fucking music saved me, what the fuck is your name? I would love to buy you the soup. You have healed me and I’d like to reciprocate at least for what you have done for me.”   


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nigel Headcanon || Part 2.

This serendipitous encounter turns everything around for his fate as the incident had lead him out from the darkest black hole, the unfathomable pit of the misery. Everything soared from there and then. The wounded animal completely recuperated and mended as Gabi fueled his radiance and existence. Going through hell and all when he locked himself behind a room where no lights breached through and a thousand cobwebs entwined to snare him in petrified gloom. Like a click of missing link, filling the irremediable cracks with her vibrant persona and materialized as the unique piece of the puzzle he sought after finally in his grasp. Everything about their intense relationship became magnetic and he became obsessed.

No amount of ephemeral additives and secular debaucheries helped to fill in the gap. Whenever he became too angry, fueled with too much fury that it gnawed at him, Gabi always had checked him with balance. When his fueled anger saw no end, burning him inside and out, his dark aura seeping through the very walls of the club, all he needed was her. The intensity of the addiction through the roof, her presence, in its entirety and only means of taming what seemed an uncontrollable beast, was immediately soothed with a single touch and a magical mold of lips, a breath of enchanting spell, than any other emollient or tranquilizer he could get his hands on. Tranquility shot through his bloodstream.

There had been more what it seemed to be a calamitous encounters, signalling of his and Gabi’s death, respectively. Through all of his violent streaks, combined with incomparable surge of anger boiling over the brim wasn’t satisfactory even with the cool breeze rustling over the trees, aka Gabi walking with him as a sidekick and untouchable. When he had been held up inside the men’s restroom as a hostage, she has single-handedly walked in with the personally engraved revolver, courtesy of his gift, had planted a relentless bullet right in the assailant's face, reflecting his own method of killing.

Concurrently, when anyone get even close to her and when Gabi had gotten almost raped inside his very own threshold, he had decisively knocked three of the motherfucking bastards dropped dead even before they collapsed onto the ground in a heap. One’s brain blown off opposite the wall, the other, he had mirrored his own laceration as he watched viscera spill all over the floor and his own hands and the third, draining all the blood as the gunshot to the abdomen had his own clothes deluged in heated crimson. There had been no defying of his innate nature, yet he let his animal within released as the sheer anger flared across his facade and he let unrestrained wrath fully materialize in its form - instead of ripping through the carotid artery, he had ruthlessly and without a single thought, taken his onslaught of boiling anger with his revolver, taking not even a heartbeat when he executed his victims and watched the vital fluid spill. He even had taught her how to shoot the gun in her self-defense, along with his expertise kickboxing moves.

As it was meant to be, everything seemed to flow without any hindrance. His club was soaring, money flowed effortlessly and with Gabi on his side, nothing seemed impossible, his relationship with her had been flawless. Feeding off their addictions, filling up cracks and flaws of each other’s.  Of course, like a normal couple, they had quarreled and had arguments. He would be in his usual gloomy and grumpy self and he would seal his lips and drown in solitude silence and Gabi would wait around that. Finally deciding to break the news, he had proposed to her around his birthday, the day of their first anniversary. Bonded and exposed his innards more than anyone he had ever had, tying the knot would even solidify more of their soldered relationship, the unbreakable link between their auras. It was the exact date when he had taken the biggest risk in his life to make an excruciating journey downstairs to finally hear and see the very individual who had licked a caressing touch upon his laceration, giving him an invisible helping hand to heal the gnarled scar tissue once and for all.

Along with Darko, the power couple of Bucharest ruled all. When Nigel had been absent with his usual excursions along the European countries, taking business trips at lengths of time, Gabi had taken a full charge. Working as the brain, building on his criminal empire to make it solidified and vehement. Nothing made the haunting and petrifying memories to return with time spent with her. Fueled by corruption, their plunge with substance abuse and sex, and streaks of violent killings continued, for those recklessly brave and impudent enough to step between them. Like his book proved to be true, a painful reminder of halting chapters of his thick tome, nothing lasted forever. Especially if those reminiscent memories proved to be full of contentment and everlasting blissful joy.  

Gabi’s dad, Victor Ibanescu, had never visited nor approached him in his thriving establishment. Having married Gabi for two years, with her absent from practicing the upcoming orchestra, Don Giovanni, which, serendipitously, tied them together in an entangled knot.  Then his words rang like the storm of ravens flocking and taking over the frigid and empty corridor with sharp air. With an incredulous awe, making his lips ajar, pupils waver as the shiver spawns all over his spine, brimming over to the point of imminent eruption. He couldn’t simply kill Victor and call it an end. And it wasn’t even a dilemma.

Wordless and drowning all the other sensations marring his flesh, his eyes dilated and widen to register his own reflection. The looming cobwebs, sparkling in the ominous misty light envelop and disintegrate him. Full of malice and nonchalant coldness behind the trembling tapping of his fingers against the grip of the revolver. The sinister and amused grin plasters on his face as the pivoting hips turn his facade right into the lens of the CCTV. He was at his coldest and expressionless as he could be when he had pointed the barrel at his victim's’ head. The part of the firearm acting as an extension of his own heavily armored, egotistical and self-conceited self, executing in the position where it would prove him all-powerful. Planting his feet of his existence, since when it had irreversibly scarred from his adolescent years.

A round table with three individuals who had owned him money and favor. Darko had been with him, letting them have fun, consider it their last ephemeral pleasure they will savor on earth. Addicted to gambling, Nigel’s money had quickly drained in their hands and now they were going to pay it with their lives. Nigel’s distinctive smirk could be seen, before his face remained impassive, only the ghost of the amused tilt of his lips visible. A sheer enjoyment. He didn’t even blink an eye when everything became bloody. The gunshot sending splatters of dense blood and brain matter in a halo, painting circles across the tablecloth as he wipes the barrel of his handgun with a rag as if nothing had happened. Two more kills under his name as Darko shoots the remaining one, sending him collapsed in a heap along with the other victims, the mere preys among the hierarchical system. The disposal of the bodies would be easy and no one would look for those abandoned poor souls. Three counts of ruthless murder. It was as good as blackmailing him. He couldn’t reside in the city anymore along with the tape as the single most crucial evidence. A sinister and sly tug of his lips conveying the entertained and glimmering glower. The fanning of the halo, seeping through the clutched fabric along with scattered diamonds and spades continues to play over and over in his head. Fingers clenched tight, turning pallid white, it would be better to disappear without the trace and be away from her than locked up behind the bar, awaiting the fatal injection or worse, life sentence without chance of parole.

During those four years of absence as he had silently absconded the city, the first place he had retreated to was Lacul Rosu, the cabin where the gnawing memories replaced the delightful ones of them revealing each other’s hidden personalities. His vulnerability and weaknesses thrown in the open. Gabi had accepted and taken him as a whole, rendering his indestructible and unbreachable armor useless. She had also fore taken her dominant side upon himself, giving them a glimpse to what is to come. Where his heart poured in its entirety, he relentlessly works to dwell on those resplendent and enthralling retrospection. There’s no succumbing to sorrows and letting his mind taint and affect with needless condemnation of slanting shadows. As much as his spine tingles and chills with terrifying thoughts threaten to consume him, it’s knowing that his recollections aren’t simply a reverie or a phantasmal creation within his subconscious that relieves him and prevents him to grow impatient and suffocating in wretched visions. It’s all the good memories that drives him mad, spending each night reliving those etched ones, freshly painting them over and over.  

Having heard the spectacularly horrible passing of Gabi’s father, the first news that he hears is that she had long before, taken a position of a primary cellist in Bucharest Philharmonic Orchestra. As he had frequented the opera while being in their tempestuous relationship, he had procured himself one of the most coveted seat of the popular opera and had partaken in the arts the first night when he finally stepped into the city where he had considered home. Feeling an astonishing amount of comfort from the grandiose composition echoing off into the private box, he stood in the comfortable slanted shadows of the arch above him, dressed in all-black from head to toe. His healed scar tissue fluttered as the pleasurable itch surged along the gnarled flesh. It had felt like the first time he had drifted into Bucharest as a vagabond, after halting his self-destructive bouts, growing rampant as his days of drug smuggling continued. Moving up a ‘notch’ as he had called it, pilfering and scamming from the people who rolled in riches and hitting and stealing from boutique stores had its limits. Finding drug business making even more money as he had his cunning charm that drew people in, his natural street smart and the way to get his way with his seductive smirk, his gorgeous figure had also garnered him a position of a bartender at the club. Working from almost midnight to the morning with the dawn was upon him, his work had been daunting. Bartender at night, drug dealer during the daytime. He had his aggressive tendencies, still unchecked as he frequently got into bar fights and brawls, his now impressive physique and tanned skin enough to intimidate and threaten anyone.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A little poem for the thread, Runs on Batteries, where Nigel is a humanoid android.

A noticeable permutation, a **metamorphosis**  
the darkness within him dissipates into thin, imperceptible rays  
the glowing luminescence absorbs into him,   
as he is given a new life.  
fingertips seem to diffuse, far from being a coherent shape  
aching, clawing, prickling and excruciating  
exquisitely painful as    
all the nerves and atoms of his cells sing   
an aria of cacophonous symphony   
orchestrated by plethora of epinephrine  
and feverishly convulsing muscles.

so sweet like nectarine, blissfully beautiful and   
painstakingly languid.    
blue veins throb with renewed life,  
the blinding ray from the bundle of buds,   
as such unconscious act deems appreciative  
Like a ricocheting bullet changing its expected projectile,  
he relinquishes the control  
fortuitous, unfurling the curled fist   
spreading sparks of vigor,   
more so exemplified by his corporeality.

disintegrated into the blinding light   
of the woeful darkness,  
consumed whole by unfathomable pitch-black of his shattered heart.  
no more black-opalescence of   
tainted blood  
lest a bottom-feeding crawler, gnawing his skin  
deliberately taking him into an event horizon  
where no matter could dare escape.

Locks of hair, unbeknownst to him, fully manifest into ashen blond veils  
a spark of electricity, a zephyr-like movement  
as sonorous voice echoes through the room  
welcomes the imminent vicissitudes of life  
Along with the crisp air, breaking the dawn,  
the gloom aura pushes away  
as probes gaze out with such intensity. 

_Sunt înapoi, pentru a provoca un haos asupra lumii._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *I am back, to cause a havoc upon the world.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a poem I wrote about ten years ago in college. It fits for Nigel, so I am sharing it.

Pain, pouring rain  
a tub of ice cream  
too  
much  
excess  
hurts -   
           slower than a snail, eating   
away at me. 

Perhaps   
more than the   
broken bone  
the fragmented reverie,  
falling in   
             Inferno,

bore,   
slow prick  
of healing wound  
papercut, taste of   
blood   
in your mouth

brute necessities,   
sensation of   
not getting rid of it.  
Infestation in the   
                Brain.  
Desire’s loot. 

Pain,   
hardened cocoon,  
layered skin shedding,  
feeling of being alive  
gaining understanding of   
                 who I am.

Pain, earthworm  
so unfortunate -   
out on the  
                sunny day  
a cumulonimbus  
caught in a   
shower  
would fain to get a rest.

               

                 When it rains it pours. 


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nigel x Gabi. The movie's ending.

Through the burning hazel glow

The recollections of tainted past reel

How feverish and tumultuous it had been, mind aglow 

with incorrigible flame, a permanent stamp seal 

Clutched fingers poise taut, decisively 

wanting your raw and naked love for the last time 

wavy gaze fleetingly search for yours lovely

in the projectile of, rather lively vigor 

the more his mind sets like stone, 

vehement as a testament of aim

confirmation futile as a sole player of tug of war 

I watch you cross the inevitable 

as I exonerate myself from red right hand 

takes the right pair of eyes and a lock of lips to stir my heart - 

until I am once again, refueled with yearning love 

tender and malleable, you sink your teeth and tear me apart 

more easily and irrevocably as I fall 

so I am left with gaping holes in who I am 

through thick and thin, the battle-tested spool 

without hesitation and expectation 

the only company is a curl that matches the intention 

of what could have been, 

you and me, irrevocable as a impenetrable veil 

swiftly sinks me into an inescapable quicksand.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lecter Twins Headcanon - Aftermath of their confrontation (part 1)   
> Based on the thread Fire & Brimstone.

So Hannibal had killed all those motherfucking perpetrators who had ravaged their family apart and brought them justice. How Nigel had over-underestimated his twin as he had been reduced down to a sweaty, bloody mess with more raging burning pain, almost acting as a tranquilizer inside his bloodstream. Those fluids hadn’t been enough to deplete his vigor at all, as his usual fight lasted until the other or himself was absolutely trashed, chewed upon as one covers in blood head to toe, with contusion and livid bruises that would last for more than a couple of days. And it didn’t involve any weapons, except his strong arms and legs, not properly trained, but utilized enough throughout his life as he was a seasoned brawler and fighter. But with this particularly short-lived confrontation had literally K.O.’ed him good, and as each moment passed, it was crystal clear and painfully evident that whoever this person, having gone through a metamorphosis of a phrase through all those years had been transformed into a killer, perhaps much greater than his own to his reluctance to accept this striking fact. Now Hannibal is kneeling over his body and treating him like some mischievous and unruly child and he had definitely evolved into something entirely else than the bookworm nerd and a weakling he had encountered nineteen years ago; more so like the idealized version of the older brother who had been absent from his adolescent years.

As much as accepting the other had been the better fighter creates a dent in his fragile ego, it is much excruciating to register the fact Nigel hadn’t gotten a finger laid upon those deserving his own share of violence and wrath as well still gnaws his inside. All the petty past grudges aside, this one would haunt him further as his inner voice screams. Perhaps all the unchecked rage towards the older twin really had been worked as stabbing himself in the stomach. Citing excuses as to looking for his long estranged brother and advancement in his profession and fame, what had he done really to justify all his wrongful accusations? A liar, a coward, a hypocrite. Who was he to blame Hannibal’s changed personality and demeanor as the traumatic experience shaped him into a completely different individual? Although he himself hadn’t changed much over those years, his emotionally charged and strong recollections of the past presented in a messy, yet swift dominance over the other, as he watched bodies collapse. Savoring the victims’ last breath, moment of their ceased existence and the reflection of himself, arm stretched, steadily holding his position as the blood and brain matter splattered all over the tainted walls. He could still smell the phantasm of the previous individual’s revolting scent of release. He didn’t have to be professionally trained to be aware that even dead bodies got an erection and could orgasm if the circumstances had been fitting. More than la petite mort, perhaps a little gift from above.

That brief loss or weakening of consciousness aside, Hannibal’s arms are there to pluck himself out of the snail in the honey situation, where he just would have sucked everything up and scream until he literally passed out from exertion. Growing even more so adamant, the urge to free himself from the strong hold soars, yet his treacherous body remains silent, still and docile. The blade, along with the wrapped towel to prevent it from moving around too much remains in his still penetrative gaze. His gaze not even once directed at the sight of the penetration, the searing hot crimson continues to fuel the tinged heat, skin flushed both with subsiding anger, now replaced with the bitter idea of defeat as he gazes into an abyss-like facade of his brother. Calm, still composed ever without even a twitch of his facial muscles. Removed and clinical as if he was just one of thousands of patients he would have seen while he was still practicing as an emergency surgeon.

Then, Hannibal suggests something his mind hadn’t even thought about. Perhaps the scent seeping out of him like a strong, angry fists of a stream had been a giving clue. The adrenaline quickly replaced by the unmistakable scent of his musk. The stitches on his right shoulder, along with a few quaffs of whiskey, reduces to a gentle numbness, almost imperceptible as it becomes tender and endurable. The dominance exerted upon himself acting as a garret for unfamiliar sensation to enrapture over him. “I am merely suggesting you unfold that pent-up wrath within you to manifest into much more productive task, for both of us.” Encased in the robe his twin had draped over him, Nigel didn’t even have to reply to confirm the proposition - all he had to do was to relinquish what his body had wanted to do all those years. All the misconstrued thoughts cleared, it’s easy to get into the act of it with eased mind - never tranquil and restless, but the sensation itself is like an unswallowable lump going down to dissipate into his digestive tracks, serving as an irresistible and unstoppable energy.

As the beaming light reflects off the newly paved, jet-black asphalt along with rainwater still glistening the stretch of road from downpour earlier, the music blasts from the speakers on dashboard. Humming the tunes behind the visor of the helmet and his foot steadily pressing onto the accelerator,, his clutch on the handle tightens. The hint of their confrontation is barely perceptible underneath the layers of his clothing and the thumping percussion of the bass along with his elevated palpitatining heartbeat. After two-day excursion to New York after having confronted with Darko, who had abruptly told him that he needed Nigel over in Bucharest. As much as things had been taken off with the New York establishment, which will open for its business after three months as the construction wraps. Uncharacteristically, he is indecisive and doesn’t offer him a surefire answer. He had just come to terms with Hannibal and he still hadn’t purchased his return ticket back, nor he had soon planned to do so. After so many wounds and their hearts torn in pieces and had gotten older and stronger, he knows their shared experiences will mend all of those without seams and although some will tear deeper as the time goes on, the expectation was that neither of them wanted to be abandoned and left alone. So no more separation. The thought solidifies as he reaches closer to the destination, on route to Hannibal’s office, where the older twin had wanted Nigel to be there by 8:30pm, on time for the last patient of the night’s departure.

The feeling is still present and akin to a sweet release into the other, the holistic tremor of exquisite bliss; ashen locks plastered onto his forehead, the intense gaze mellowing out in a diaphanous gaze, taking other’s tinged cheek. Perspiration slides off of their Gracian coppery bodies as scents amalgamate with imminent surge of cloying release. Unsheathed erection and the expanse of his back muscle trembles, then halts in mid-air, as the undulating muscles taut as his lean abdomen ebbs to tighten further. Hannibal’s tight and well-controlled sphincter muscle works to suck the younger twin’s length deeper, hitting the sweet spot as dense fluid splatters all over his stomach, the intense odor of sex deluging over as his chin tips upward as Nigel’s fingers vanish underneath Hannibal’s unkempt locks. Accompanied by series of not so silent, guttural hitches of breathes that press tightly against his larynx, the sight is hindered by thick strands of opalescent ribbons, along with Hannibal’s hand pressing against the impeccable sutures, slightly raised and swollen, color deepened with reddish pink. Teeth clenched, an orotund and sharp cry breaks the relative silence of their breathlessness and bodies moving in synch.

Hannibal’s last session of the night drags along. The patient, physique like a linebacker, is too reminiscent of his younger twin, but in much less savory and refined form. Having issue with the concept of control, prone to anger, constantly struggling with alcoholism and drug use and had divorced three times due to domestic violence. Slightly agitated, Hannibal refrains from having his usual glass of vintage Bordeaux and all he wants to do is to savor the plummy, spicy undertone of the wine and unwind in front of the fireplace. The time excruciatingly warps to slow down and as much as he offers the same courtesy that extends to all of his patients, his patience is wearing thin. And as usual, when the time is up, Hannibal ushers the patient out the door and to his prediction, Nigel is fashionably late again as he hears no stomping of the heavy boots nor the blinding high beam of the Ducati flashing through the window, signalling his arrival. While the trail of thought distracts Hannibal enough, the patient turns around with a revolver much similar to the one Nigel owns, and a flash of bang deafens the entire office, the trace of gunpowder burning creating a faint smoke.

Before Hannibal takes a heavy backstep, his abdomen spreads with dripping blood, immediately soaking through the layers of blue pinstripe three-piece. The patient clicks the compartment of the gun, confirms that it is empty, then storms out by foot without ever changing his expression. Sullen and derogatory. Fingers clasped around the flawlessly organized desk, along with carefully arranged patient files and notes to wrap up the night, he collapses in a heap as more crimson gushes out like a spouting fountain. Bringing a hand down the entry site and monitoring his elevated heartbeat, Hannibal tries to reduce his breathing to a minimum, fighting the bodily urge to hyperventilate and spew more blood until his brother gets here.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lecter Twins Headcanon - Aftermath of their confrontation (part 2)   
> Based on the thread Fire & Brimstone.

The last whirring vibration steady between his legs, Nigel whizzes through the last clump of traffic in downtown Baltimore, to get into the familiar sight of cookie-cutter townhouses and clusters of shops, past all the bleak terracotta brick buildings to get to the three-story mansion, standing out like a sore thumb in comforting darkness, cocooned by complete solace along scattered celestial bodies. Completely oblivious that the assailant who had shot Hannibal just passes by him, fleeing the sight in a taxi, the streamlined sleek body swerves as he enters the impressive driveway along with the portico coming into his peripheral vision. Hannibal’s Bentley still parked out with no other vehicles present, he immediately assumes that the last patient of the night had left already and he would be greeted with the sight of the older twin, sitting stoically and occupied with his patient notes with a glass of wine next to him.

Securing the bike and kicking himself off to dismount the bike, his keys, along with a lit cigarette jangles within the loose clutch, as a crisp and cool air of autumn licks the curve of his neck. A faint layer of perspiration perched on his slightly flushed face, rampant with adrenaline from just less than a three-hour ride. Although he had begrudgingly agreed to accompany Hannibal to an upscale French restaurant in the vicinity for the night, he had promised to wear the most nicest outfit he had bought himself on undetermined length of his vacation. The all-black Versace that was almost as good as tailored suit and he would just change into it in the office. A glass of wine would be just enough to get things going and loosen him up from the intense and unexpectedly strung meeting. The garment bag draped over the crook of his elbow, he heaves a sigh-like exhale, watching the ectoplasm of the smoke rise along with his faint crystallized breath. Almost bashing the door to the waiting room, through the shroud of wavy smoke briefly hindering his sight, he perceives a lingering scent of gunpowder. His own shoved down the back, the grip of the revolver presses against the small of his back. He himself hadn’t fired the firearm recently.

Hearing Nigel’s distinctive stomping, Hannibal’s lips flutter with a heaving sigh, the droplets become a continuous stream as the polished hardwood floor gleams like black opal under the darkening illumination. The slanting penumbra looms over like haunting memories. Fabricated by Nostalgia, the view of the perished family not completely lost in his mind palace. Although excruciatingly painful, it alleviates the searing shooting pain as he immerses into the pensive of his mind. The lodged bullet, fortunately, hadn’t penetrated or nicked any major organs and arteries and the recovery would be swift. His high tolerance for pain doesn’t aid in his features scowling and creasing. More of an annoyance as frustration flares, radiating through his spine as the surging heat makes his face clammy. His corporeality mirroring the gentle beat of the waves, kissing over the soft shore. Minimizing his breathing as his conscious recedes to wistful thoughts, the spurting blood soon becomes the pitter-patter of the drizzle, quenching the parched earth as he relishes complete relaxation at the window, reading to Mischa and faintly noticing Nigel’s frolic footsteps outside the backyard.

Soon, another door swiftly kicks open, and Nigel’s oxfords catch the crimped casing digging into the sole of the shoe. Lips thinning and jaw setting tightly, his teeth tastes the tobacco underneath the rolled paper and the garment bag is thrown over the lounge as his long and quick slide immediately transports his figure next to Hannibal’s. The older twin is curled against the foot of the desk with slightly disheveled hair, a lock curtaining the left eyebrow with fingers clasped tight around the handkerchief, already soaked with blood. Nigel’s professional sangfroid visage sets over, like a drawn curtain. Except, this is his blood and flesh someone had injured. Adrenaline soon cultivates to control the enormous mess of mental, beginning to go out of haywire. Hannibal hadn’t even gone to explain all the details of how he had found out and tracked the killers to reciprocate what had coming, controlling his mind over this matter is the most challenging of all.

Wanting to punch walls and any surface that would get his rage and anger in check, instead, his knuckles whiten as Nigel lifts Hannibal’s bundled fabric, gathered around the side of the other’s abdomen. The penetration is deep, but there’s no exit wound and without any medical knowledge, even he could tell the bullet is anywhere near vital organs like lungs. There would be no need for confirmation, to break the dead silence that drown along with the comfortable darkness seeping through every inch of the atmosphere. Such needless questions like who has done this or what would happen to that individual doesn’t surface as he already concocts the answer, unfolding it in his mind and it becomes as clear as a day. That former-patient would drop dead once Hannibal recovers enough.

The quiescence continues, except his own frenetic heart beginning to spread his cage open. An arm circled around Hannibal’s slouched shoulder like a dolphin would aid his dear injured one by offering his body as a buoyant floating device for the other to breathe, Nigel hears the older twin’s controlled breath, slipping out like a faint sigh and a purring growl of a predator. “Where’s your fucking key? We’ll go to Johns Hopkins and take care of you before we get that fucking bastard killed. I will personally rip him apart like a shark does tuna fish.” The intense permutation of Hannibal’s iron-rich blood already cracks lightning through his viscera, already concocting a picture of how it would go. The only thing that he knows is that individual would be reduced down to a pulp until the law enforcement fails to construct his identity.

Hannibal’s slightly broader and heavier frame encases Nigel as the stiffness of the other’s muscle presses against his side, petrified as he feels the minutest contraction of the expanse on the side, droplets of crimson dribbling through the fingertips, which in turn, takes their shape as talons as he applies more pressure. “Take me straight to the E.R. I have a colleague of mine working on a night shift.” His gravelly, heavily accented voice drawl much like the younger twin, as Nigel fetches the overcoat and thrusts his hand inside one of the front pockets to retrieve the keys. Hannibal’s slightly crestfallen gesture stirs the moderated flame within him to sweep across the crevices of his hammering heart and Nigel shoots a dagger-like glower towards his brother. Perhaps it affects more than his impetuous outwardly expression, already growing out of hand. “As much as I would be more than capable to pluck that fucking bullet out of your side, I don’t want to cause an unnecessary pain than what you’re experiencing now.” Double-checking to pull the knob, his fingers splay and squeeze hard against Hannibal’s lean flesh, both in attempt to stop the bleeding and in deliberate malignancy.

He could still make out the gruesome sight, forgotten, reconstructed in his nightmares as the scene unfolded in both skewed and swirled recollections. Snapshots of unmistakable arterial spray dripping over the elaborate wallpaper, along with the paralyzed limbs of their parents convulsing as more blood gushes to form a giant sinister puddle underneath their feet. Diaphanous orbs flutter with a fleeting sign of life, the frigid wind whips through the open door along with melting footprints from his boots, reflected across the stream of crimson. Through repeated motion of the dominance exerted to his victims, Nigel had constantly caressed his cracked heart and mended them in pieces, projecting his thoughts over to the soon-to-be executed to find unsettling serenity over the traumatic experience. Even then, the safe haven of the dream would seep with a deeply sinking fog, both unnerving and unsettling. In reduced visibility, there would be an unknown creature looming over his body and if he ever tried to writhe away and free himself from the sinister hold, the imprint would sear onto his arm, as cords of his neck became more pronounced with clenching of his teeth, defiantly resisting as he sinks into a saturnine temperament.

Not having driven a four-wheeled vehicle in a long while, Nigel struggles with the manual gears on the Bentley at first, but as his hand-to-eye coordination skills soon catches up with the concept, the black sleek body pulls at the entrance of the hospital. A hectic night, as nurses move in and about, the stench of antiseptic and horrendous scent he associates with hospitals are all there. Finding no empty bed for Hannibal to rest upon, Nigel’s piercing eyes dart over the threshold of the room to find someone with a cast around their ankles about to get off the movable bed. “Hurry the fuck up.” Before I fucking crack your leg the other way, my patience is running thin. Finishing the unclouded thought in his mind, the bridge of his nose tightly pinches when Hannibal’s unreadable expression brightens up a bit as his gaze diverts.

It’s not because of the bright light of the room nor the nurses scattering around them to scrutinize the injury. “Dr. Lecter. What a pleasant… Surprise.” The other doctor, with a bundle of patient files close to his chest, shoots a worrisome gaze down at Hannibal’s exposed abdomen, then flickers between Nigel and Hannibal. Clearly, the man hadn’t been aware that Hannibal indeed had a twin, most different looking one at that. Dissatisfied as his quick-witted but weary brain immediately catches that they weren’t just colleagues. Perhaps the other doctor had designs on his brother. He could literally feel the spark of electricity generated between the other’s gaze. Hannibal’s gaze remains rather impassive, even though more blood bubbles over the entry wound. “The exsanguination isn’t that severe nor he has a potential for hypovolemic shock, he should be all well after the surgery.” The man’s reassurance doesn’t comfort him as Nigel’s suspicion deepens. Knowing his gut instinct had been almost always correct, he would patiently wait like a coiled viper, then strike while he can to eliminate him.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A Lecter Twins Drabble || Mr. Misfortune

Slipping out of the waiting room and fidgeting with the crooked bow tie around his neck, pressing too tight just underneath his adam’s apple, Nigel’s recently polished oxfords gleam with a faint moonlight illuminating through the quiet office. Besides the tranquil atmosphere of the night darkening and seeping into a fire-lit threshold, the gnawing firewood emitting the nostalgic scent of oak and an occasional whirring breeze patting against the windows the only sound breaking the dead silence.

Hannibal’s back is turned as he carefully folds his usual attire of his own windowpane suit jacket and waistcoat, replacing those with his cummerbund and suspenders, the former matching his impeccably ironed and immaculate white shirt and clipping in the suspenders before his eyes travel down to the velvety black jacket. “Fuck all this black tie event you manage to get invitations to, what’s so fucking special about this one?” Why couldn’t they just retreat to their house and relish in their usual feast and enjoy the recent kill together? Nigel decides to omit the details and mutters in his hot breath, thrusting a hand down more relaxed formal pants and underneath the pleated sash, consisting of subtle pop of colors.

Looking over his shoulder slightly to take in Nigel’s midnight-blue clad toned and slim package, Hannibal’s lips curl imperceptibly as he clips in the suspenders. Implanting the idea of formal dinner wear and perfecting it would take a bit while to reach its flawless state, but getting his defiant and unrefined brother into one such as this had already been half the success. “Quite a debonair, aren’t you, but I have to insist, this will be the night I will formally introduce you to the circle of my high socialite acquaintances.” Smoothing a hand over the trousers and pivoting his hips to check his backside over the full-length mirror, Hannibal meets his younger twin’s eyes and urges him to get close.

“Do I have to wear this fucking thing? What the fuck was this called again?” With a downward tilt of his lips, Nigel exasperatingly sighs before slightly tipping his chin, watching Hannibal beckon him to help with the back clip of his suspenders. Clipping in the last clip and pulling on the elastic, he thinks about messing up the other twin’s hair before Hannibal’s nimble fingers are quick to fix the cummerbund, effortless and natural as it could be. “Another fucking layer upon layer only to make myself bloody presentable.” All he wants to do is to strip everything off to slip into his usual matching tracksuits and go out for a night ride than having to put up with more uptight snobs and have his sailor mouth get checked.

“Pleats upward, Nigel, you have it upside down. Black Tie attire is so timeless due to the staying power of the principles on which it is founded and one of these guiding principles is that the working parts of one’s ensemble must be covered or dressed. Awkward bunching around the waist must be covered, don’t you think?” Double-checking the location of where the suspender had been fixated and plastered on the broad expanse of his back, Hannibal pivots around by his heel to go over Nigel’s less than perfectly put together pastiche of elements. Like a composer, with his added notes here and there, the outfit comes together in a blended brushstroke.

“I can still scent myself on your skin.” Hannibal impassively states as a hand winds around the younger twin’s waist to correct the right side up. A light sheen of perspiration around Nigel’s neck accentuating the heavy musk further. His hound-like olfactory sense could scent all of his younger twin’s usual scents. Stale cigarette, faint undertone of whiskey he surely had sipped from the flask and heady musk of cologne. Leathery, seasoned and more deeper with motor oil and gunpowder scents lingering onto him like a second layer of congenitally.

“Like you fucking care a rat’s ass about that.” Primping on the jacket with a devious grin, Nigel’s gaze traces southward between both of their bodies, the negative spaces closing in. Hannibal remains impassive, before Nigel gives him a knowing smirk and gives him a nudge along his side before puffing a breathe.

“We should head out, punctuality is essential, especially after I have caved in to your ‘request’ and skipped reception for a quick supper.” After fumbling with Nigel’s pointed bow tie a million times to get it straightened and giving the younger twin a pet on his cheek, Hannibal finishes to dandify himself, then shoves his twin towards the waiting room with a widening grin. “Grab your clothes, I don’t want to find none of the disarray you have left in there.”

Rather in a congenial mood, instead of his usual grouchy and barking self, Nigel blinks once and drags himself towards the other room, retrieving all of his usual attires, strewn and hurled all over one of the armchairs. “Might want to open your fucking windows to let some air in.”

“As if I didn’t take that into consideration.” With an almost unnoticeable tilt of his chin, Hannibal pulls his overcoat and double checks everything else, as he puts the fire off and scans every surface for any untidiness.

“You’re in a good mood.” Hannibal observes as he turns off the light of the main office area, watching a faintest curl dipping Nigel’s healthy glow, accentuated by the smoldered fire as the other grabs his revolver encased in a belt holster, courtesy of himself for their birthdays.

“I was thinking about the last fucking ‘accident,’ you made me fucking choke on damn foie gras.”

Plucking a cigarette out, he purses and chews the end of it before lighting it as he opens the door open in one wide swing. He had escaped both an awkward moment and death by Hannibal’s lips with a self-performed Heimlich maneuver.

“I’ll never look at liver the same way, but do finish that cigarette before getting inside the Bentley.” Amusing, indeed. Hannibal thinks, before shutting the door and hearing the keys jangle as he plucks them out from the overcoat pocket.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An anon requested some Lecter twins domestic fluff, Hannibal cooks for Nigel, maybe?   
> And this is my best attempt at domestic fluff.

Not wasting any single unnecessary movement, with an open mitt gingerly placed on one hand, Hannibal’s maroon gaze darts across the exterior glass of the oven before he opens the door. Only to be bombarded with the fragrant aroma of the lamb rack gradually turning succulent brown and falling off the bone tender along with a heap of generous steam warming his entire face, the appetizer for the night is already artfully plated over the dinner table like a serene landscape across him.

Slipping off the mitt to turn his attention to the caramelized onions and halved figs, he picks one of the juicy figs, the flesh dripping with natural sugar inside the flute. Digging his fang-like teeth into it, he relishes the little comforting solitude of his sanctuary before it gets disturbed by a widening array of low and high beams from Nigel’s Ducati Multistrada 1200. The golden blinding light illuminates through the unperturbed entrance to the kitchen through the glass door.

Hannibal briefly squints his eyes and narrows his eyes as he leans against the middle counter, fingers curled around the impeccably clean marble counter-top before he awaits his brother’s dramatic entrance. Feigning obliviousness, he turns his back to tend to flipping the root vegetable, wanting them to evenly cook through with uncharted sweetness.

With an ice cream cone clutched around his fingers with jangling keys, the white sticky liquid drips onto the cleaned driveway before the roaring engine shuts off. After few of his characteristically long and striding stomps, the quietness breaks as Nigel’s swaying hips along with the gleam from the grip of the revolver seeping through the pitch-black around their spacious mansion.

His discordant, flashy three-striped Adidas track jackets, not one, but two of them layered together, one red, slightly bigger around his frame and one green one, tucked inside and fully zipped up almost up to his neck stands out like a sore thumb around impeccable ambiance of the state-of-the-art kitchen. Knowing his younger twin’s eccentric choices of clothes, Hannibal is not entirely surprised at himself for not making another caustic remark nor ripping them apart and burning it along all the blood-soiled clothes from their clandestine activities. Pretending to be oblivious once again, Hannibal scrapes the flesh of the fruit with the back of his teeth before tipping his head slightly to greet the younger twin. “Finally you have come to some senses not to smoke… Nigel!”

Finding very difficult to lower his voice with his younger unpredictable brother, Hannibal’s jaw sets as his gaze trails downward to dribbling melted liquid, even more tainted by Nigel’s careless step right over it as the cream smears all over the flawless hardwood floor, recently polished. A heavy clump drops all over Nigel’s veiny arm and after few chopping crunching sound, the mess disappears right into the sink as the faucet turns on. “What an exemplary display of animalistic behavior, Nigel, please wipe the floor before you storm off to smoke that cigarette.”

Washing his hands and wiping his hand on Hannibal’s apron, Nigel pivots around his oxfords and turns to look at the opulent and newfangled display; snails sliming through the surfaces, with Kumamoto oysters and cucumber mignonette sauce, nestled in a bed of crushed ice and rock salt. His fingers searching for a cigarette inside a crumpled pack, he drops one through the clutch of his fingertips and almost stutters, making no attempt to crotch and grab his precious ciggy.

“What the fuck is all of this? They’re not even fucking escargot and you know I abso-fucking-lutely hate those and oysters? Haven’t you learned your goddamn lesson in Paris?”

Drooping his shoulders and grunting in displease, Nigel exasperatingly sighs before tightly pinching his brows. Mouth still ajar and locked in invisible mold, he kicks himself from sinking quicksand and dashes out with the dropped cigarette between his index and middle. “I’m fucking eating McDonald’s than these non-consumable mess of crawly creatures.”

Before Nigel ever reaches for his keys on the counter again, Hannibal’s fingers turn talons to snatch them away as another hand reaches beneath Nigel’s collar, an onslaught of smoke accompanies with his usual leathery cologne and a faint film of sweat. “You are not going to bring such abominable atrocity on my table. What they call ‘meat’ is filled with pink slime constituting blood vessels, bone, nerves, fats and cellulose and such processed foods can cause erectile dysfunction and we wouldn’t want that, do we? I consider you higher than a canine.”

Shooting Hannibal a death glare, Nigel huffs the cigarette as the smoke huffs out of his nostrils and lips akin to brazen bull letting out of steam. “Don’t give me a fucking nutritional lesson and explain what the fuck this is.” Gritting teeth, Nigel can’t help, but to let out a disgruntled noises through crinkled nose, flinching back as he interposes a shoulder in attempt to turn away.

Blocking the way by pivoting his hips, Hannibal leads his younger twin towards the table. “Remember our last dear victim? I used these same snails grown from the garden to make them taste better.” Taking a shell and using the pick, Hannibal takes out the flesh and takes a bite, chewing thoroughly as he relishes the subtle saltiness. Licking lips, he moves onto the oysters on the half-shell, slurping inaudibly to appreciate the delicious juice along with the chilled mignonette sauce, as the onslaught of fresh flavors come together in his palate. An imperceptible grin briefly stretches Hannibal’s lips before handing one shell to Nigel, who begrudgingly accepts and swallows the oyster whole. “An aphrodisiac for a reason, Nigel. I don’t intend to eat you in that way we partake with common interest. At least not that way. Although, I do have another purpose to feed you as they contain high concentration of zinc, iron and dopamine, it will give you fuel.”

Giving Hannibal a tiny shove, Nigel’s mouth stretches in an easy grin as the dualism formulates in his mind; both to make him taste better and to give him energy. “As an old foodie named Casanova insisted to eat sixty of these sea-dwelling mollusks, you should be my true cuisine after the dinner is over.”

Looking through half-lidded lashes as his chin slightly tips to seductively gaze down, Nigel chucks off his red, unzipped track jacket off. “Perhaps a fucking comparison is in order, if you know what I mean.”


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Titled "Fading Colors."  
> Nigel x Will. My reply drabble to http://ethicallyaskew.tumblr.com/post/143845738725/ahhh-i-had-to-do-it-3.

Death had tendencies to take on an unpredictable forms; it could manifest into a hovering hawk, its aerial gaze honed from afar. With a span of his wings stretched effortlessly as it glides with the zephyr of spring, sweeping down to tease. The looming swooping motion would make most people tremble with fear.

Nigel didn’t believe none of that, the appurtenance of his profession bought him to embrace the grim reaper in all sorts of ways. It took a form of a spillage of his viscera, with each huff sinking him deep into an inescapable quagmire. None of the things the mainstream movies portrayed, or different individual’s accounts held up to be true - no flashing of his past recollections in a snapshots or a slideshow, not an ounce of regrets and overly dramatic confessions whirling around the creases and crevices of his brain.

The silent, yet drowning conversation between his rational and psyche continues, as he gazes into an incalculable vastness as his dewy haze expands.

The unplucked shrapnel in his heart continues to solder and incinerate, fueled by his own warm vital fluid, supplied with a steady drop from the transfusion; his body puts up a formidable fight. His mind - not so much. The conversation from several years ago, percolates and solidifies as if it just happened a moment ago.

Acceptance, tolerance, having delight in adapting turbulence in his life. The transformation from a guileless callow, a forced maturity plummeted him down another dimension, before a fleeting unification would be akin to two considerable-sized celestial bodies to clash in a stellar collision. The force itself is reckoned with as he accommodated every bliss and the garbage it followed.

Then everything had ended with a bang - an empty chariot with equally evanescent gallop of hoofprints marring the striking evidence of the collision.

First of all, he had been wearing a protective gear for once, and being on the two-wheeled vehicle with none of the protection, his body had long parted even before his instinct reacted within the deflated heartbeat - the world had shut down too early as a bursting column of flame had consumed the extension of his body.

He wakes up after two days after the surgery and as abyss had gazed back at him with a steady and aglow orbs, the news channel informs him of Hannibal Lecter’s incarceration.

The clutch from the other side is vehement and rather relentless. It takes him a moment to come to his full alertness as he plucks himself out from the unending obscurity of haziness, smothering his entire body as the onslaught of disinfectants and steadfast drop of IV fluids bring himself to the equilibrium - of life and reverie.

The knock outside his hospital ward has his body to tense and everything aches. Even his own coursing blood feels foreign and he wants to eject everything out. It is an oxymoron; his soul clings to his wrecked vessel, but if he could ever be freed with supersensible astral body, he would be liberated from all the recurrent pain and traumatism.

“Nigel, you have an incoming call, from the States.”

While unpooling the bandages, the nurse hands him his phone, miraculously surviving the bloody wreckage.

“ _ **Tu ai adus culoare in viata mea**._ ”

It’s like slipping in and out of the shallow kiss of the ocean. The foamy white caresses him like a reassuring pat, of the individual opposite the line. There would be no one calling him to check on him; coming into the world more as a wayfarer, there would be no fear in death.

His oxygen mask fogs up with the hitching breath and the back of his eyeballs ache with dull yearning - of their shared time in the city. The spoken Romanian through non-native’s lips offer a provisional comfort.

“The Fauvist painting would look dismal with the treatment of a baroque painting full of glazes and chiaroscuros. My life, in essential, is flaking to become just that. The craquelure of the surface is supposed to hold the zest of life, not making every damned fucking contentedness along with each chip of pigment.”

Fingers become rusted talons, blunt and jagged as his veiny hand crawls through the sheets, the other hand clutched around the phone with a death grip, holding the last corroding lifeline of his threadbare clutch of it.

“I’m clutching onto my life with all my might and yes, I’m still fucking alive. _Culoarea in viata mea dispar, împreună cu prezența ta_ ”

_**The color in my life are fading, along with your presence.** _


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tribulation, n. - grievous trouble, severe trial or suffering.

“Nigel, we’re  _ already  _ running late.” 

 

Hannibal’s low, flatlined with a bare hint of annoyance clarifies as Nigel’s heavy lids welcome another spectacular day at  _ their _ mansion. Exasperatingly sighing and already immaculately dressed to the nines, in his usual three-piece with the dark gray windowpane suit, Hannibal forcefully tugs the comforter away from Nigel’s body. His younger twin becomes one with the coiled fabric, manifesting to mingle his appendages further within the creases and folds. Nigel’s unruly disheveled hair sticks out in every direction, mimicking the early morning light crawling over the floor as Hannibal pushes every curtain in the suite open.

 

“Ten more fucking minutes.” 

 

Muttering as his drawling voice gets muffled by his face, plastered and buried smack dab in the center of the pillow, Nigel licks his upper lip. Slurping the drool excreting from the corner of his lips and frowns as his limbs feel weighty, having eternally stuck in a thick puddle of molasses. The side of his face is scrunched up in a tight pinch, the reflection of creases etched through his skin as a slow, pendulous movement carry him to lay on his back, only to be stopped in mid-air. 

 

Creasing his forehead and letting out a lengthy groan, Nigel flops back onto his stomach and stretches his folded right arm over to Hannibal’s side. His brother so stubbornly adamant in sleeping on the left side. His brother had insisted - as usual - that their tuxedos be tailored to perfection. With Hannibal’s definition, it was “flaunting their gorgeous assets in its impeccableness,” but to him, none of those display of their ‘desirable assets’ matters none when he couldn’t even move his fucking arms without tearing a stitch.  

 

Such prosaicness took its elevated meaning with his stuck-up brother and as he frees himself from the comfort of a hazy reverie. Only to find his pinned shoulder begins to ache with a dull throb in the process. Although the scabs had already fallen off, the only hint of the separated skin in the form of barely visible line. Hannibal’s dexterous aptitude and like his penmanship, everything must be damned impeccable. Missing the crucial muscles and arteries, with minimal blood loss. It’s as if nothing had happened to the naked eye and the scalding pain is only etched through the back of his brain like a phantasm of the day that would mark as another detour. 

 

Maybe that’s why he hadn’t sought his brother out for nineteen long years until now; fearing the serene, unperturbed solitude (and loneliness, as it became his consistent company along all those years) might be disrupted like deeply lodged bullet lodging even deeper into his muscle tissues and ligaments. Even with the drainage of Lecter blood coursing through his veins, he would emerge from obscurity and resolve to be the same bloody individual he always had been. 

 

_ Like a ticking time bomb, but with its major defects and shortcomings and varied degree of explosive power.  _

 

With each pump from the ventricles, he could feel the bile scent of bitterness press up his throat along with the wretched noxious fumes turning his visibility to none. 

 

The duvet already slipped off his boxers-clad frame and without him ever perceiving it, when the heavy mist clears up in his mind, he’s inside Hannibal’s Bentley. Already dressed in his usual character-defining outfit; minus everything else he considered to be his second skin -  _ holstered _ revolver, the form-fitting blazers in place of his most treasured leather jacket, without its sheen and luster and with stiffness of new garment, with no cigarettes or flasks. To his absolute abomination, his calloused fingertips are immaculately cleaned with no cuticles and manicured nails. 

 

As accomplished and adroit individual Hannibal was, the skepticism towards his brother followed him, as body-contouring golden orange glow would trail him behind his back as the roaring engine beneath him would whiz around the buzzing traffic.  His mind is quick to plummet him back to his childhood years, as penumbra crawls upon the damp earth with familiar nostalgic scent of petrichor, mirroring his treading steps as foliage tramps underfoot as his exhausted steps become more of series of drag. 

 

For his brother, who doesn’t fear his own bubbled up fizz inside the vessel of his capricious mind, that perceivable whiff of air, acts as a catalyst for making a mess of himself; an implosion, rather than lashing out for whatever ramification has brought him here and now. Hannibal rather entertains himself, knowing just what kind of reaction he would achieve under the little flick of his conducting baton as Nigel had already shared majority of Lecter blood - despite starkly opposite traits, rather quick-witted, brilliant with his  _ crude and raw _ eloquence. Most importantly, penchant for violence and intolerance towards those who wronged them. 

 

There had been nothing placid and pretty about his propensity to lash out; the storm of fury always brewing like the most strong and bitter cup of double-espresso. If Hannibal was an artfully, masterfully percolated cup of drip coffee, attaining all the undertones of roasted coffee, Nigel had been completely opposite, people would see the remnants of ground coffee underneath, extracted with a sub-par coffee pot.   

 

_ What a strange vessel human heart is;  _ **_love_ ** _ and  _ **_hatred_ ** _ can coexist and stir up his mind like nothing else. _ Like water and oil, as long as it maintained its separateness, no additive to alter its disquieted state. 

 

He’s already there, standing on the center-stage with his psyche and body bared for knowing spectator to see. Stripped away his fortified layers one by one until he is left naked. A similar predicament of intense love and loneliness. Perhaps he had been high without knowing it, or was this another concoction of drug coursing through his system without his knowledge? With his attempt to free himself from desperation and loneliness, he had regained that lost connection with all of its addendum, too. 

 

_ Manipulation _ ,  _ withdrawal _ ,  _ adaptation _ , and finally,  _ metamorphosis _ . 

 

And before his arm raise to dip into the pensive pool of his mind, he finds himself in his utilitarian danky flat. His cell forwards a call - to a number he knows is out of service. The name flashes on the screen as a sick joke, a dull, serrated knife prodding the pumping muscle.  

 

_ You’re  _ **_gone_ ** _ , yet you govern my everything as if you’re still  _ **_alive_ ** _ in my mind.  _


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nigelgram, both drunk off their feet (some way or another).

With the searing migraine reduced to a benumbed, rather pleasant sensation of undulating waves of blurred colors, he plucks himself out from the sinking quagmire of a cushion. Already molded to take his form, it would’ve been so effortless to pass out there and then. 

Like wasps buzzing through his ears, he hears indistinguishable drone of his own baritone. The drawl of his usual guttural sound reduced into an unhurried, careless utterance.  

“ _Ți-am spus că a fost o idee dracului de bun._ ” It was hell of a good idea. Fucking good, like twenty-four karat gold idea. 

Unintentionally having to quit drinking booze cold-turkey due to his injuries, the spreading warmth intensifies as he becomes the vessel for the flint, closing in the heat into the hearth to be detonated upon the ambiance. Like a wobbling roly-poly, the hurtling journey up the stairs is full of bumps and thumps; one time, he collides with the protruded handrails and pendulums back to get a clasp upon his balance.

The barren, paint-chipped walls become the brimming foliage full of life. The birds chirping, gentle breeze lifting the tail of his shirt and the crackling of dry leaves as they offer the vagabond’s frugal bedding for the luxurious view, plucked right off from the postcard. 

Each failed attempt at thrusting the metal into a keyhole becomes another repeated loop among his usually projected trajectory; the densely packed woods spread with intense strokes of golds and oranges, manifesting itself akin to a wildfire. An undignified grunt after another, the jangling key registers all the same, their reproductions becoming indistinguishable objects in his less than refined movements. 

 _No, that’s the fucking key for my bike, this one’s to my office and the back door to the club._ _**Nope**_ , _the one for the_ _warehouse_. T _his one the private entrance to the roof._ The safe haven for all things non-Hannibal. He could literally make out the strands of tobacco strewn all over the rugged ground, along with the bone-dry bottles of booze and energy drinks, set up in a wobbly row for his practice in precision and raw discharge. 

His fingers quivering with building annoyance, he lunges as if he had been gutting a particularly unsavory individual from the club, drawing a semi-arching motion to get that uncooperative doorknob open. With a decisive kick, he throws a curled fist in a hook and thrusts it upward. 

“In your fucking face!” Talon-like fingers hooked around Will’s waistband as his coiled arm tightens around the other’s middle, he back kicks the door shut with an echoing bang as he fumbles for a cigarette refusing to come out from the breast pocket. His lighter, a long, weighty and bullet-shaped object has a flattened piece of casing super-glued on the tip. That damned bullet that once had torn through his skull. 

 _Who would ever fucking keep that and carry it like some kind of a talisman?_ He wasn’t exactly a normal person.

“Take the damn bed, couch is off the fucking limits.” 

He will be spending a mobius’ strip of paradigm shifts, plummeting and plucking himself in and out of the poignancy of the past and present.  


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aptly titled 'Stitches'  
> Taking place between Prince and the Pauper and Fire & Brimstone. Nigel spiralling down the abyss with drug use.

As if all the weight upon the world had been perched upon the broadened shoulders, Nigel hurls his shoulder bag across the dank flat. Through the obscurity of all, the stardust full of stale ash and gunpowder, with its characteristic bitterness and smokiness cuts through the air like a series of jabs, relentless and ruthless, sharpened blade full of hatred and animosity. His heavy boots, caked with dried clumps of dirt and melted dampness from the drizzle turned snowstorm outside, the bleakness of Bucharest settles like non-percolated grains of coffee grounds, stubborn as his somaticizing throb of pins and needles, just behind his eye sockets.

Experiencing as ricocheting discouraging remarks, the onset of migraine triggers along with sudden quotidien recollection of the small studio in Paris. His undigested savory and piquant meatball soup from downstairs pushes through his throat as bile, the wretched bitterness turns to catalyst the worst stomach cramp he had ever had. Nothing the cheap booze wouldn’t solve. Rummaging through the bone-dry bottles with settled dust collected at the bottom with a scrutinizing tip of his foot, his hawk-like gaze scans through each and every bottle, perched upon the griminess of the burial grounds. _Neglected_ and _disfigured_.

Sinking into the comfortable, yet sickeningly deep sinkhole of a couch, his own molded form from the night before greets him like an ominous phantasm of what it used to be the hopeful past - his grades were dropping without no means of bringing them back up. He had already faced academic warning not once, but three times. There would be no understanding why, Nigel Lecter, a bright, witty, argumentative and stubborn-headed individual who would make a hell of a private investigator had slipped downward without a prominent warning. No one would remotely place an educated guess through his plasted-on poker face, even more unreadable and enigmatic with each day passing. His fingers still clutched upon the rumpled piece of paper; a notification that he would officially drop out of the institution until further notice.

His lackluster, bloodshot eyes take in the ambiance, the shadows crawl over the walls, enveloping and curtaining down the vast windows covering the whole section of the wall. The snowdrift piles up as soot in his mind whirls to a pitch-black smoke. The shrieking screams echo through like echolocation, the high frequency tearing him from inside out as the wavy cacophony pinches his brows tight. Every imperfection, lumps and shards envelope under the dense caress of the bloodied hands.

Unforgiving bed of daggers expand on the floor like an arctic frostbite, taking its relentlessness out on the unexpecting prey. Coarse crystallized fragments turn icy cold at the tips as they emit carbon dioxide like dry ice. His petrified and benumbed form lax as he crashes through the jagged edges, snarling at him with fling of his curved spine. Vigorously shaken as the world becomes a mere concoction within the reverie of his mind, his wobbling and faltering step staggers as the ground pulls him right down, to where he belongs. Entrapped between the rows of layers, another set of arrowtips incinerate as the gleaming metal turns vivid orange golden glow, the melted droplets dribble and perforate through every orifice of his body.

Coughing and hacking, he tastes rusty tang of iron-rich blood as drops become streams along the sharp angles of his cheekbones and corner of his lips. Small puddles gather on the philtrum as his bleary eyes open back up, only to be greeted upon the walls of his own skin hindering the view as the pitch-black darkness greets him. Unable to gauge how much time had passed upon, the sticky fluid ebbs and flows between each exhale, the dusted powder of the coke adulterates and loses its potency. The whizzing bustle of the boulevard beneath his sight whirls as his fingers splay open to become talons, the palpitation throbbing heavily against his eardrums.

His threadbare shirt seeps with heavy deluge of sweat and fluid and his fingers curl into a tight fist, until his knuckles whiten and the veins protrude as the ever-glowing lub-dub becomes widening haloes of van Gogh’s brushstrokes. Almost crude, but elaborately _intricate_.

His mind an ever-growing ocean with dark adulteration of teals and cerulean, the deceptive depth turns a double-edged sword himself as he is about to drown in a shallow puddle of water.

Through the clumps of ectoplasms, the full-moon glimmers through the smeared streaks of blood, his footprints along with ravaged living room tells the half-told story. Through the entangled steps, he barely makes to the steel-framed twin-sized bed, the rumpled sheets caress his form in a half-attempted brush. Imperceptible crystals embed further into his flesh, now blemished with various degree of cuts and contusion from his undignified fall.


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Based on Panic! at the Disco's song titled House of Memories.   
> Takes place between Prince and the Pauper and Fire & Brimstone.

The stretch of time halts and the space he occupies draws out from the rest of the world, as the faint cacophony of the percussion and heavy riffs of guitar, along with DJ’s spinning disks pivoting around the table becomes world’s away from his own paradigm shift. The hardened length of linked chains, threatening to break into fragments of irreparable goop, flavorless and all the awful things it could be.

_The lonely moments just get lonelier, the longer you’re in love._   
_Than if you were alone. Those memories turn into daydreams to become a taboo._

They had lost its integrity and poignancy long time ago - instead of a blanket cocooning him from the afflictions and bitter resentment that haunts his subconscious, it turns into coarse gritty prick of sand and leaves ugly, septic claw marks. There would be no emollient for that sort of thing - it’s unforeseen and unpredictable.

The etched recollections of the previous night’s fervor and upbeat streams of tunes are still ingrained to each crease of his brain as he had concealed himself inside his safe haven. Electric explosions of vigorous energy and bustling steps remains inside the abandoned haunted house, the house built on memories as the club’s basement reduces down to that very essence of the concept. The eerily desolate walls of the club still empty before the atmosphere revives with the blaring energy of the businessmen and youngster club-goers alike. The sensation transforms within his skull as a continuous reverberations of bongo drums, erratic but persistent.

_I don’t want to be afraid, but the deeper that I go, it takes my breath away_   
_Soft hearts, electric souls, heart to heart and eyes to eyes…_   
_Is this taboo?_

Like brittle remnants of strewn skeletons scattered throughout the barren battlefield, the neglected mass grave full of unnamed gravestones and unspoken epitaph, the grim sonorousness echoes through the walls as frantically flapping heart palpitations and erratic breaths resonate through the corners of them. Even the repeated motions of the personalized pipe scraping across the bleak wood of his desk, as angel dust makes angel out of him just yet, is oblivious to his consciousness. There’s a fine line between oblivion and just enough edge between blinding whiteness and a shuteye, all the excessive flow of heightened sensations, including the sixth sense.

In the zenith of the loss - the loss of his self, clutch upon the reality and the significance of their relationship. He still sees them on the Paris rooftops, on their bed, or perched together with the press of limb to limb, heart to heart, through mobius’ strip of concurrent exchange of breaths. It just remains as what it is, the past. No chance of being repeated in flesh, as with an arm’s yearning stretch, dissipates into the thin air as his feet grounds yet again, into the very heavily dusted earth.

Maybe he is suspended in the air - without the stability and a ground to confirm his existence. Tiptoeing through the way until the weight sinks upon those weary bones and muscles. The wavy spread of halos, the radiant sunlight barely graces the cold cement, hoping to penetrate through the defensive layers of his fortified fortress - only to be pushed away from its resounding govern of musky darkness.

Submerged beneath the rippling iridescent gossamer veil, it’s his safe haven - even without the strokes of his own making, smeared upon the porous walls of the club. Nothing a cloudy mystic whirl of obscurity and bombardment of blazing halos and radioactive stream of technicolor wouldn’t solve. The time warps and the evanescence manifests upon the stampede of zealous individuals, along with copious amount of confessions from his part.

_I’m not fucking going anywhere. I’m too resilient and stubborn to clutch upon the hopes of reuniting with you again, closing in the gap until our frictioning bones crack and perforate. And I will be here every single time you need me._

The waltzing of stolen breaths, thrumming palpitations, quivering flesh and sweet exquisite release paints over the ceiling like a sand painting. With each threatening press of his heart, the grains swirl and hurtle across the ambiance as a lost cause.

_Those thoughts of past lovers._   
_They’ll always haunt me._   
_I wish I could believe you’d never wrong me._   
_Then will you remember me in the same way as I remember you?_

Blissful caress of the luminescent rays didn’t reach down the depth of the concrete-surrounded bleakness of the walls. Completely filled with chipped paints and suffocating air of stale nicotine and corroding pungency of blood, intensified with his own. Even when the sun would have reached his overhead, his office maintained the pitch-black obscurity.

Slumped over the chair with an elbow propped over, a new batch of sanguine cup over his cheek and ingrains a path down to the wood, adding onto the puddle of thin glimmer and jagged shards that multiply his reflections in tenfold. Veins etch through the expanse of his gaze and projects outward like a retort turning into a retaliation.

No amount of snowdrifts and rattling of the glass, skin spreading with goosebumps and pain registering as he isn’t some sort of a phantasm, floating without intention and in hopeless abyss is an infinitesimal comfort among all things dismal. Precisely the reason why nights were precious; it wasn’t judgmental, hiding all the imperfections the day revealed. He could just retreat into the welcoming respite head-first and shut the world away as he endured the period where coal became diamond.

That alone was a sole reason why he had maintained his innate nocturnal nature down to his bones. It had a strong inclination to change its course at an instant and there was a certain enigmatic intuitiveness in those glimmering stardust. It made him to retract more to himself in the darkness as he plunged his head down to the netherworld, where the raw fear of abandonment, along with his ignited raging fire inside turning against himself in self-destruction.

With the glittering shards of crystals strewn over the sinister puddles of crimson cohesively flowing down his side, the only illumination from the screen of his iPhone tells the truth of the story - the steel front door, along with the full-length mirror completely obliterated as his creaking bones and stretched skin ripples like a tumultuous ocean before the storm.

_We built this house on memories._   
_Take my picture now and shake it til you see it ._   
_And when your fantasies become your legacy, promise me a place in your house of memories._


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is an answer to Will's reply, based on an anon's question, "Are you in love with... Nigel?"

“Nigel?”  

 

Will looked down at his hands, rubbing his the pad of his thumb distractedly across the pulse in his wrist.  

 

“Nigel Lecter is the frustrating embodiment of all the ridiculous love cliches that I didn’t believe in until I met him.  Like seeing someone across a room, and realizing that you feel like you’ve known them forever.  And how the weight of their arms around you could actually feel l like..  Well, I don’t think I need to repeat the old tropes.’

 

“Yes…”  He finally said quietly, managing a rueful smile, “I love him.”

~~

With his ankles crossed and perched atop the desk with strewn shards still sparkling like diamonds in the corner of the surface, Nigel watches the tobacco crackle with the flick of his thumb, watching the white smoke whirl towards the ceiling. The stale haze stirs as the accumulation of fog settles deep into the office’s ambiance, the nicotine seeping through the walls that shrieked with blood and flooding emotions. 

 

“It is absolutely terrifying to let someone in without a fucking warning,” with a deep drag lifting his chest like an inflated balloon, his lips draw an ‘O’ shape before he continues. “Letting him see the darkest niches of my soul in a fucking heartbeat.” He percolates, a tumbler tips against his inner thigh, half-full with whiskey. 

 

“ _Nu am întâlnit niciodată pe cineva ca el înainte_ ,” he wistfully mutters between his smaller exhale. _I have never met someone like him before._


	20. Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nigel x Gabi, my take on Gabi's dominatrix headcanon.

“Why the fuck did I ever agree to do this?” Nigel grumbles in his typical fashion as he discards the last item of clothing. His half-hard erection already visible through the thin black briefs as he sweeps over his long legs. 

“Relinquishing control and you didn’t exactly say no the last time I probed,” Gabi retorts as she coats a copious amount of lube onto a long, thick purple vibrating dildo. Maybe for the first time, she’d give Nigel a breather and go easy. He had agreed on her proposition - they’d go through this halfway and let him have what he wanted. Gabi riding on her cock as they usually had, but she’ll see. 

“Get on all fours, lift up your ass,” with a quirking smirk, Gabi ignores the deathly glower Nigel’s shooting through the gleaming dots of his hazel orbs and beckons him like she would her puppy. “I’m glad you’re keeping your word for it.” 

With a defeated and a peculiar sigh, Nigel adjusts and resumes his (humiliating) position and flashes a look. There would be no fucking individual who would ever see him assume this position nor ever imagine what he was about to do with his wife. 

As soon as Nigel perches atop of the sinking mattress, the weight of him dispersed and sheets gathered around the center, Nigel’s weary gaze diverts towards the back where Gabi stands with her glistening fingers. With a subtle pinch of his eyebrows, he nods and presses his forehead against the pillow. He doesn’t know what to expect, what to come, what kind of sensation he would be assaulted with. 

Gabi’s teasing fingers trace the distinctive line along Nigel’s cock, his testicles already pulled taut and tinged red. Traveling upward and pressing more pressure upon the crevice of his tight ass, her other hand splays over the cheeks and gives a light slap. 

“You’re the only fucking one who can get away with this, you know that.” Nigel’s voice quivers ever so slightly as if finger of ice had been running up and down the length of his spine, transfixing him in the invisible mold. Not even daring to make a movement, the only perceptible feel is his erection twitching between his strong thighs and fingers curling and digging into the edge of the pillowcase. 

Her fingers adhere and close in, her gaze turning akin to a tigress closing in for a kill. She had relished the rare sensation, since she had been with Nigel. Sort of a becoming and accepting her husband’s innate nature. It rarely happened, but when it happened, it simply was a transfiguring and quite beautiful. A silence lingers before she slowly thrusts a finger inside his entrance. Her motion slow, deliberate, yet calculated. She knew how tight his virgin hole would be and she had all the time in the world to explore that on her own. 

Simply taking his breath away doesn’t cut it. It’s petrifying, frightening as well as liberating. His whole vertebrae seem to ripple as if unperturbed sea had suddenly tumultuously stirred by a brewing whirlpool. His head sinks further into the quagmire, fingers tightly latch onto the sheets and draw a fan-like motion. Every muscle seem to tighten and constrict as his steady heartbeats start to go out of whack. 

Soon, one finger becomes two, breaching through the damned obstinate resistance and his whole body trembles like leaf in the wind. Gabi’s rhythmic thrusts sends him over the edge faster than the bullet fired from his revolver’s muzzle. Through the roughened breaths, he finds sublime calm. 


	21. Chapter 21

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lecter Twins, my reaction (headcanon) of Hannibal being tied.

It was a rare occasion when Nigel was awake way before Hannibal did and not stirring him awake with his less than subtle movement. The sliver of ray breaking through the parted curtain looks almost beatific underneath the pitch-blackness of the room and against Hannibal’s face. A blaze of silence still along them, with the lingering musk still permeated through the master suite as slanting slash of mischief dawns over those thinned lips. 

Without ever making a sound, he had been the star pupil of Hannibal’s. With his knowledge of walking on socked feet (as the ambiance still held a bit of a chilled frost of snowdrift, piled over the windowsill) and surprising his twin with the administration of it, he quietly begins his premeditated plan to unfold. 

Not only his custom made holster very nifty looking, it had a multiple use - in this occurrence, it will serve as a restraint to tie around Hannibal’s wrists and ankles against the bedpost. He had to be swift and quick. Retreating to his room where he had kept it all this time, he removes a few strips of leather from it and also retrieves a handcuff. The rest of contraption goes over his bare chest, the thick mat of grey chest hair heaves as he takes especially long inhale.  

Hannibal is still sound asleep and his face remains placid and tranquil as ever. with the strip of light widening and crawling over the expanse of his twin’s almost naked form, Nigel works on the limbs pressing against the mattress first, then moves onto the ankle and wrist as he gives a forceful tug. Intending to wake Hannibal up. Despite his intentions, his face remains plain, almost impassive, except that twitching corner of his lips. 

Unlike Nigel, who would have caused a pandemonium until every four corner of walls rattled with his guttural screams of resistance, Hannibal merely blinks and immediately registers his immobile state. The charcoal silk sheets rustle under his shifting weight. “Amusing, Nigel, very intriguing indeed,” Hannibal’s opal-like maroon looks right through Nigel’s own, dripping with arousal as he perches atop of Hannibal’s parted thighs. 

Nigel’s gaze immediately follow the trail of patches he had left upon the expanse of Hannibal’s chest; some had faded and nicely left a haloing mark and some were still bruised with livid purples and pinks. His neck was where Nigel’s tongue and teeth had invaded the most. Not that both of them cared nor they couldn’t be hidden, but he planned to make more of those as ink blots seeped through the paper and left the lasting impressions.  

But first, ridding the last piece of fabric, and having fun with the silver gleaming blade that reflects both of their faces on the opposite side. As they will always be. No matter how much they have accepted each other and met in the middle, they were the sun and the moon, the opposite side of the same coin. At least they could speak through the spark exchange of gazes. Invisible hands already grasping each other’s form as they entangled together. 

A halcyon blissfulness radiates through both of them as the curtain blows through the whispering wind, a bit of frosty coldness isn’t enough to extinguish that gushing sun-ray now blending their forms together. With a calculated, careful movement, Nigel slits through the silk briefs and makes an imperceptible indentation through the length of Hannibal’s penis. His gaze fixates upon how the sensitive foreskin swells with blood, tightly stretches over the gorging head and finally, a drop of crimson forms at the end of the creased skin and glides effortlessly against the thin blade. 

Hannibal’s spine arches beautifully, the metal clanking as a gentle vibration flares through his entire spine as if static electricity had shocked him to mold him in that particular place. Toes curl, the unmistakable scent of blood and its onslaught upon his nostrils immediately sends his arousal to surge. His erection bobs, as if asking for more of those cuts that will litter over his sun-kissed skin. 

“After you lick that over, do give me a kiss, my dear,” Hannibal’s low baritone barely trembles, masked over with exquisite sense of power. He knew well what blood did to both of them and Nigel couldn’t resist it either. After all, a kind of electricity seemed to gather inside both of them and that sense of power continued to brew as they relish in a brief moment of silence. That settled itself deep inside their eyes, threatening to be discharged.  


	22. Chapter 22

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nigel x Aiden. A short drabble based on the thread I'm doing with him.

“That’s too fucking tight,” drawing his breath as it flutters like a rustling wind, Nigel’s expanded chest barely ebb and flows underneath a few constricting layer of bandages, tightly plastered over his middle as if pressure alone would sever him in half. That’s how it feels like at least, with the threshold of pain he had gone through. The damage had been worse than what he imagined; with the high wind velocity of the ride along with the strenuous climb over the five flights of stairs had taken a toll on his already incapacitated body. As if his limbs weren’t already on the verge of tearing itself apart as the shivering sensation carried on like wavering reed along the riverbank. 

All the loose suture had to be undone, then Aiden had gone over each of the pierced skin, now jagged and angry mauve with sensitivity and constant rubbing, to close the gaping wound. Nigel barely had made a loud, barely audible sound as he forced it all behind the gritted teeth. His chest the only thing making an erratic rough, rumbling sound like his motorcycle’s engine. Even with a new cocktail of morphine with saline solution coursing through his jutted veins, a complete solace escaped him as his wired brain simply refused to shut off for the night. Siting Aiden’s interest, instead of admitting he would definitely need help with everything around the house for a good couple of weeks, Nigel’s hesitance only stretched there and then - still they were a relative strangers, but then he didn’t blurt the most darkest secrets to anyone, not even his closest entourages and associates. 

“I wouldn’t want your stitches to tear, again. Who knows what will happen with your recklessness?” Aiden persists as he clips the tight-knitted fabric off. It had been three days after their first encounter and to Aiden’s surprise, Nigel had agreed upon posing against the couch, where they were situated. He wasn’t particularly frightened nor had taken notice - or he pretended to have missed it would be more accurate - by Nigel’s deathly glower focused right on his own blue pools. Bringing in a large newsprint pad to get his hands loosened up, he already had completed few nice gestural drawings for the future reference. 

Nigel is forced to straighten his back as his usual slouched posture would strain the stitches and stretch the wound and he flutters a groan, muffled by a greedy deep drag. Letting a copious amount of smoke uplift in an ectoplasm, Nigel perches against the backrest of the couch and turns to his profile, giving Aiden an access to it as the other man moves to the adjacent couch. 

“Since when you cared fucking shit about my damned lifestyle? You don’t even know the fucking half of it or would be able to fucking register,” he derides and puffs a long exhale, tapping the ash inside the empty mug. “Don’t fucking mind me falling asleep after a while.” 

Aiden surely knows. Nigel was a definitely a better version of his late father. All the rough exterior and through the fortified defense mechanism and driving off the strangers, he knew he would have to be patient. He wasn’t shoved around or get hit by those rough hands. Better, that muzzle of the revolver hadn’t ominously gleamed upon his direction. That would be a small progress and Nigel wasn’t disallowing from fulfilling his primary intention. 

The moonlight shines and casts a diffused ray over the slanted windows, letting in a stream of humid and hot air of the Bucharest summer in. The twilight had already long passed, through whispering scratching of Aiden’s pencil and Nigel’s shallow breathes, slowing down to a steady rhythm as the clock face rotates a full circle. The long hand clicks and Nigel’s already on his nth amount of cigarette, along with a half-empty bottle of whiskey secured between his legs, as if that had been his true morphine. Just a thing to get his damn mind off of the acute pins and needles. 

About an hour in, Aiden gets up to stretch his arms and to step back to look at his hard work. The proportion seems spot-on, except he has to tune in a bit to focus on Nigel’s face now, that he got the basic anatomy laid down. 

When Aiden sits next to the broader man, Nigel’s jaw tips down as the cigarette continues to burn. The lingering smoke exhales in small amount through Nigel’s lips as fluttering eyelashes tightly plaster to the lower eyelid. He must have lit the cigarette not too long ago, Aiden thinks. He had been to enraptured and transfixed upon getting the other’s form - tall, slender, toned, rugged, yet there was an underlying gracefulness of an animal he adores much. 

“Nigel, I need to…” Aiden’s blue orbs shift towards Nigel’s profile, closing in inches as the other’s shoulders tip, the matted ashen locks fall over from the arch of his cheekbones with a guttural, inward groan. 

Setting the pencil down onto the small coffee table, grimy with dust and ash as more scatters across their pressed thighs, Aiden takes the burning cigarette and puts if out. Scooting over to the opposite end of the couch and letting Nigel lay his head down on his thigh, he feels the searing warmth radiate from the other’s sun-kissed skin. 


	23. Chapter 23

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Twins, bloodletting, things take an unexpected turn (well, expectant if you know blood is high on both Hannibal and Nigel's kink list).

With gathered supplies set atop on the tray, Hannibal crosses over the threshold of his study, where Nigel is half-perched on his desk. Looking at the clump of mess his brother had carelessly discarded, he lets his lips quirk downward in a disapproving manner as he rolls his eyes. His twin had already made himself comfortable (as usual, Hannibal’s not even surprised), with both legs hanging off the edge of the desk with his button-down shirt already rolled up. The open window offers a bit of humid summer breeze to be let in a series of whispers. 

“How much do you need for that fucking sanguinaccio dolce or whatever the fuck it was called?” Nigel inquires as he glances over the antique-looking devices. A beaker, narrow at the top with a trapezoidal body, a plastic tube about three feet long and a beveled edge as thick as a comb’s tooth. Eyes bulge outward as he looks at the thickness of the tube, though he had countless endeavors where he himself had administered saline solution and drugs intravenously through therapeutic apparatus. 

“About 500ml. It would take about half an hour, perhaps less.” Hannibal had already drawn his own just before Nigel had stormed inside his study with a cigarette dangling off his mouth last night and stored his bag in the basement for later use. With Nigel’s drawn, the dish would take a much more sublime form and signification as they celebrate Nigel’s graduation with top honors. 

Even with the twilight drawing the curtain over the sky as the reddish orange tinges over the horizon, the stifling air seeps into the study and Nigel’s form soon contours with intense fiery glow. Hannibal’s already grabbing a rubber tube to tie it around Nigel’s upper arm and he springs up, slipping off the sleeves and discarding his dampened shirt. A faint sheen glimmers over the flat planes of his pectorals as he resumes back the position. “Turn on the fucking air conditioner, m’so hot.” He frowns and shields himself from the blinding sun ray and taps the heel of his socked feet against the leg of the desk. 

Giving a tap over the crook of Nigel’s arm, Hannibal draws his twin’s fingers together in a fist, urging him to curl them repeatedly to see where to perforate. “I will as soon as I have this going.” With a soothing gesture over the thick mat of the doppelganger’s chest hair, Hannibal applies disinfectant before giving another tap over the particularly fat vein and checks the beaker. “It’ll sting a little, continue squeezing your fingers in a rhythmic interval. That will aid the bloodletting process.”      

Well, it wasn’t nothing like he wasn’t used to a bit of a sting, but this was a bit different. Sort of transfixed at the crimson escaping through the whirl of the tubes and dribbling into the beaker, each drop intensifies through his eardrum as drops become little stream, as a small puddle widens through the thick glass. Mesmerized, Nigel’s half-shut gaze transfixes against the contraption as his spine curls up, then sinks back down to the hard surface of the mahogany wood. The tingling sensation surges further, as his head begins to get a bit hazy with each squeeze of his fingers. 

His lifted head sinks down with a heavy exhale, letting himself enthralled with the peculiarly meditative and primal act of it. With each imperceptible surge and ooze of the crimson, looking more black as inky blueish black sky sparkling with celestial bodies, jutted vein throbs even more as half of Nigel’s arm hangs over the edge. He could feel the warmth of the blood coming from just underneath his arm. 

Hannibal’s equally darkened maroon gleam like a camouflaged predator crawling behind the slanting shadow. He sticks out a hand and grabs hold of the tube as an immediate warmth spreads upon his fingertips and even more so as his fingertip gets a fresh coat of the iron-rich scent and film of blood and rich color. It stands out vividly against the obscuring backdrop of the setting sun, a wild spread of painted orange sky makes the blood look even more vivid crimson as he brings his thinned lips over. 

Nigel’s pendulous gaze drips with languidness as the beaker fills quarter way up with a generous amount of it still clinging onto Hannibal’s index. With his curled fingers the only muscles moving in a steady metronome, his voice thickens like melted caramel. “You fucking did this on purpose.” 

Stopping the tube with the pressure of his thumb, Hannibal licks over his lower lip before palming over Nigel’s straining jeans. His lips quirk up in a barely noticeable smirk as he takes a decisive step forward. 

“What do you wish for me to do?” 


	24. Chapter 24

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A Celebration || Twins drabble, featuring drunk!Nigel and less than pleased, but turned on Hannibal.

When Nigel had cited that he would go out for a few ‘sips’ to celebrate for the deserved occasion, Hannibal already had expected it would end up more looking like a considerable amount of bottles already knocked up in his mind like fallen, slanted mess of a domino. If he ever didn’t believe his grown-up ass brother wouldn’t be able to return home on his own and in one piece, how just wrong he had been.

Not even bothering to check his phone and having retreated to his study with a glass of nice vintage Bordeaux in his hand, Hannibal completely delves into the sketch he had half-finished - a perfectly atmospheric, almost ethereal looking scene of him and his brother basking underneath a gentle spread of sunray, acting like gossamer soft sheets against their pressed, entangled form.

Pleasantly mesmerized by the blended contours and impeccable chiaroscuro of their hardened, sun-kissed skin alongside with the juxtaposition of the luscious and rich colored fabrics and seraphic calm over the entire atmosphere, Hannibal gives an appreciative hum as the recently sharpened pencil etches over where their limbs coalesce into a dynamism. None is too lucrative when it comes to the incorrigible beauty that is human anatomy and how he could feel the muscles and strength even through the striking resemblance of their toned form and flesh.

Through the white noise of scratching sound of the graphite and Bach playing sonorously in the background, the late night seems to unfold well until he is abruptly plucked out of the sensation with a burst of vibration on the mahogany desk. The heavy sheet of paper gingerly laying on the surface quivers as graphite dusts and eraser dusts gather around the rim of the paper.

A series of almost intelligible throng of incoming texts vaguely resembling Nigel’s guttural voice and its crude utterance overwhelms the screen. He can only make the part where his brother says - not in so eloquent and well-formulated set of sentences - he’s too fucking drunk so get him, take taxi, he wants his damn fucking precious Ducati to be taken home, safely tucked away, away from the pitter-patter of the rain soon creating a veil upon the misty ghastly fog. The cornucopia of fragmented messages resemble enough of a vague coherence for Hannibal to raise an eyebrow and stare in a grim, downward gaze like he would to his brother in person.  

Hannibal’s lips quirk up as he takes a series of slow sips, before finishing one section he had been working on quite a while. In the sketch, his own lips hover just above Nigel’s slightly parted upper lip, cruelly curved upward, enough to taste and smell the sweetness exuding from each string of exhales. Already expecting what to find and not wanting to stick out like a sore thumb in the midst of ruggedly dressed individuals, Hannibal dresses casually, in a light sweater and button-down shirt underneath with no tie, and beige trousers, still pressed flawlessly as always. With his spare motorcycle key Nigel had given him along with his wallet, he awaits in tranquil silence with Bach still playing on the turntable, before he is notified of the taxi’s arrival. He lets it play on a loop, expecting a swift return.  

The address of the rundown joint one of Nigel’s companies informed Hannibal before making his way downstairs is on the other side of the town. The gritty part of the city where the architecture grows more industrial, with washed out colors and muddled haze of noxious and stale smoke still clinging in the air even when the pouring rain could have washed everything away by now. After generously tipping the driver as his long, yet slow stride carries him with utmost confidence, exuding off with the broadened, straighten shoulders, Hannibal is greeted with the throng of crowds exiting and bumping his shoulders. Only giving a slightest hint of frown in displease, Hannibal lets it slide and starts down the stairs until his nostrils are assaulted with Nigel’s familiar scent - stale smoke, molasses-like, sweet undertone of whiskey, a hint of vanilla and grease from the burger the other definitely have consumed. And without the dark crimson blood stain that always have seemed to become a permanent part of what constitutes Nigel’s molecules.  

The table is tucked against the corner and with a sharp pivot of his hips, Hannibal registers Nigel’s slouched form, sunk against the mold that had been there for hours. Cigarette butts sticking out of the ashtray like painted fragmented shards of glass with the rough treatment and empty beer and whiskey bottles clatter in a strewn heap, more like broken tombstones and their labels akin to unintelligible epitaphs. Encased within a musty, stagnant fume, it feels like he’s crossing the nether world, especially with the chipped, terra-cotta colored walls shrieking away disquietude and trepidations of the world like a blazing hellfire.

The transition from outside to what it seems like Nigel’s sanctuary seems like a leap of descend that Hannibal doesn’t amuse nor sought after this particular night. Of course, he couldn’t bend and break Nigel’s vehement obstinence confine the untamed beast to the night of classical aria and rather copious amount of vintage wine. He did have an eclectic choices and impressive selection that would knock anyone’s socks off.  

“Your idea of celebration goes beyond me,” Hannibal shows a bit of a contemplation within his dripping venom, his voice still encased behind a bit of person suit he fortifies against the bleak and tasteless decor of the establishment. His gaze traces the outline of the flickering orange bulb, the illumination swinging and slanting down onto them like a broken spotlight. All the bustle already drowned out, Hannibal’s intense maroon finally fixates upon Nigel’s tinged face. The arch of his already chiseled cheekbone rubbed with cadmium tint and diaphanous, half-shut gaze wavering between Hannibal’s face and a casually open top of his button-down.

With a puff of smoke whirled towards Hannibal, Nigel’s heavily lidded gaze drips with both cloying heat and heavy musk, his sweet, yet bitter exhale trace of vanilla, Marlboro and caramel upon Nigel’s personal cologne. “You’re late,” vowels drawling and his already husky voice sinking down a few more notches, his voice drags through the very air between them. The exuberance and frisky behavior is still present upon the askance of Nigel’s lips as he pivots around by the heel of his right foot. His right shoulder pressed against the flaking wall, his garish dachshund shirt looks even more flashy underneath the unforgiving shade. “I was expectantly hoping you would join such a fucking endeavor.”

Drawing himself closer and plucking the cigarette pressed between Nigel’s index and middle, reaching for those glistening lips, Hannibal immediately lunges his scythe-like grip underneath Nigel’s jaw with his free hand and beelines for Nigel’s slashed mouth even before the other protests for it. A whirling smoke peeks between their pressed bodies and adds on the theatricality. The ashes scatter, a bottle tips against Nigel’s heel as he takes a step back.

Barely slipping a choked sound as it seems to gurgle on the surface of his throat, Nigel takes a strained inhale and sends their body to turn perpendicularly, so that each of their shoulder presses against the wall. The friction and the resonating heat already brimming over through the pores immediately kindle with fire, as if Hannibal’s presence had been a catalyst for a bonfire. Through the obscuring haziness through filmy layers, pendulating as the alcohol rushes through his bloodstream even more, Nigel’s knuckles turn white as he clutches Hannibal’s bicep.

Lips still molded firmly without ever giving the other a chance to part, Hannibal’s other hand finally lets the stub fall, then immediately sweeps the long locks of hair on the crook of Nigel’s neck, giving them a steady, forceful tug.

Catching the inside of Nigel’s swollen lower lip with his canines, Hannibal nips the skin further until he feels the blood well beneath the skin. “I’m ready to take you home, whenever you’re ready.”

Brushing the tip of his nose against Hannibal’s and feeling the generated heat become something of an invisible veil around every inch of his body, Nigel feels the familiar tingle traverse downward. He doesn’t even have to look down to register the bulging erection pushing against the fabric underneath the cotton prison. “I’d fucking hurry if I were you.”


	25. Chapter 25

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nigel's death T.T *cries forever*   
> Will/Nigel/Will.

He had been here before.

Will’s fingers clutched against the flooding wound that rent Nigel’s throat; blood pooling in the spaces between them, as their liquid life became an ocean that swept across the slick tiled floor.

“No.. _God_ , Nigel.. Just stay with me..”  Will choked on the airless words, the rasp of them burning at the back of his dry throat.  His weight was braced against his shoulder as he hugged his other arm hard against his stomach; a palsied shake undermining his strength as he tried to push himself closer to his lover.

“Come on…  Don’t leave me.. You can’t fucking leave me like this..”  

For a single moment, Will looked towards the doorway; and the tall man who was watching them, his expression unreadable.  As always.  Even now, when his own mirrored image was gasping for breath through his ruined throat; their shared blood painting the black and white tiles.

Finally Will reached Nigel’s side, their bodies curling like magnets towards one another.  And Will could feel the fishhooks of their connection under his skin, the red threads that wove him to Nigel.  In life, and now; he realized; at the end of it.

“Just look at me, love.. I’m right here..”

And in the doorway, the man continued on his way.  Footsteps fading down the hallway, as he let the beat of his victim’s own hearts hasten them to their ultimate fate.

___

 _A fucking shot_ would have been all he needed. The scarlet spectacle radiating and permeating through the pores of the walls as he would be transfixed with ecstasy upon blood and brain. 

As the gunshot scorched his eardrum, concurrently, the blood drained right out of his cheeks as he registered the back of the man’s head slowly turning around like a pendulum. The dead man’s gaze soon had teared through his heart, before it dropped with a deep, muffled sound as though a bag of sand had been dropped upon his feet, a shackle pinning and petrifying him into the very place he stood. 

The folded hands, a tight curl that would extend his arm out like a magical wand immediately drops, too aghast to register the carbon copy of the man who stood upon his back. Before the man slips off the mask as the gleaming cold silver blade connects just underneath Nigel’s pin-up girl tattoo, his body slithers downward. Concurrently, brewing fury that he had been duped with a duplicate begins to boil up dangerously as the undulating pulse takes its form as a rapidly thrashing rope. Its ends gradually flaying, with each ebb and flow sends out a torturous searing pain. 

Will’s voice merely manifests into a dim and milky wave, palpitating behind the fluttering diaphanous orbs, the twinkle of the center of his whiskey eyes become a disarray of little wisps, clouds hanging motionless in the sky as his body floats. 

The grim silence is as unfathomable as the death itself, as his clutch, the only means of anchoring himself to scramble away from an eternal quietude remains Will’s looped appendages around his middle. And the extension of the muzzle pressing the dimple of his back as his body unconsciously convulses and writhes. 

As the crimson waterfall thralls him in its ever-glowing warmth, his pallid cheek kisses the heat and soon, all remains is frost and silence. His heart encapsulated in ice and unreachable concept of their entwined skin as he succumbs into dormancy. 

__

“Nigel… Come on.. Breathe, love.. I know it hurts…”

Will’s words choked across his lips, a trickle of blood trickling down his chin as the flood seeped up into his lungs.  Even after Nigel’s body had grown still (oh _God_ , so damn still) until his hands, he clung to the mantra; the words echoing the beat of his heart.  Syllable for beat, in a defiant, but flagging, protest against the grim spectre that was waiting for him.

The last time he had found himself like this– another kitchen, another country, but Hannibal’s knife had known too well where to cut him– there had been help coming. 

This time, he knew with a cold finality, that there would be no reprieve.

Red was red, and as he heard the door to their house close at the end of the hall, Will couldn’t tell where he began, and Nigel ended.  All was red, as he finally sank down beside his other half.  Blood matted his curls as he rested his head on Nigel’s shoulder; living heat still pooled under the skin.  And in the seconds before it cooled, Will could almost imaging that they were sleeping.

“You were.. the best thing to happen to me.”  His words slurred now, dragged across clumsy lips.  “Doesn’t hurt anymore..”  Will whispered faintly, his eyes drifting; lashes curling against a sticky, bloodstained cheek.

“Save a place for me, wherever you go…”  Will’s breath hiccuped in his chest as the toxicity in his blood rose, stealing the last of his air.  “I love you.”  He added, pulled his arm from around himself, and draping it over Nigel’s chest.  Just like he did every night.

“Nothing can hurt you, now..Sweet dreams, Nigel.”


	26. Chapter 26

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “In order to move on, you must understand why you felt what you did and why you no longer need to feel it.”
> 
> So your character has died. Finally shuffled off the mortal coil, and stepped into the afterlife. There they meet 5 people, who help them understand their life better, before they can truly find peace.   
> Who would it be for yours?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> { If things seem very vague and hard to understand - in order of appearance: Hannibal, Gabi, Darko, Mischa, his own sanity (Nigel’s blind here). }

**The one whose life you touched:** Cocooned within the endless stretch of time as they bathe in blackness, Hannibal Lecter sits within that inescapable darkness and the sinking emotion. His unreadable, enigmatic, yet his muscles still very well-aware of the massacre he had performed under the orchestration of carbon and iron, he could still vividly recall the onslaught of crimson spectacle along with scattered remnants of his sanity. 

His twin, bent and stretched, bruised and debilitated but not shattered and broken, is succumbed with a throng of slumber as he holds onto the darkness through the luminosity of radiant spread of moonbeam. The steady, slow rhythm of Nigel’s breathing and waltzing of graphite over the heavyweight, cold-pressed paper accompanies with the lathering of orange glow, streaming from the bedside lamp. 

Completely enthralled with the image, Hannibal continues to concoct through the fibers of the Italian paper, Hannibal holds onto the bright array of hues, the dawn threatening to break as the coalescing shades of gray continues to caress Nigel under his fingertips.  

 

 **The one whose life touched yours:** Entrapped underneath the weaving weightiness of the excruciating pain and the walls of his dank flat exuding stale smoke and flaked blood still too warm and slimy to the touch, the desolate ambiance becomes instantly celestial with Gabi Ibanescu’s sonorous serenade. 

Since then, Nigel occasionally dresses to the nines, partakes in arts and listens to the same life-blowing tales of notes and tunes, etching his own hitching breaths and searing blaze flaring through his own skin as if he had been rescued by his savior. 

 

 **The one you couldn’t forgive:** Encompassed by the shady anticryptic nature of his surroundings, Nigel’s fingertip turns the chilled doorknob, through the dense ectoplasm of suffocating smoke and dazzling flurry of iridescent neon lights, the demons of the night as the booming throb of percussion and riffs tear through the narrow, eerie corridor. The flickering light overhead gives off the ominous vibe, as his vigor drains within a second, the muscles dangle lifelessly underneath the obstinate hold. 

The one he couldn’t lock within the confinement of his arms finally becomes his own. Darko thinks.  

 

 **The one you never stopped grieving:** All he remembers is the bitter chill creeping in successions of waves, an onslaught of desolation and hopelessness as he fights the contrasting sensations. The scalding waterfall traces the defined cheekbones as he gazes at Hannibal, slouched against him and still unconsciousness. It must have been long since Nigel had been forced upon the oblivion, the seeping light of the height of the winter still aggravating against the blinding twinkle. Through the etched veins and spreads of lifeless limbs, he finds deathly solitude he wants to run away from. Yet, the confinement of piled limbs and almost imperceptible flutter of heartbeat just above him gives him a sliver of hope. 

The vivid scene becomes more transparent and ethereal, as he plunges forth the immeasurable pit of rueful nostalgia. 

Hannibal had shattered his teacups and waited to gather itself back up again. Nigel only sees a cornucopia of muddled textures, the jagged cold crystals, entwined with the gleaming black opal, dazzling reflection of hollow gazes and immobile pallidness of exposed skins and workings. 

He gasps through the heated and clammy skin, as his sweaty hand cups over Hannibal’s. The twin’s knowing gaze pierces through the back of his skull, already scrutinizing. Through the comfort of silence, the unfolding begins with rapidly palpitating heart and diaphanous gaze as they take the arduous and aching trip back to Lithuania. 

 

 **The one you feared to face:** The expanse of his skin remembers the very day as if it had happened just a heartbeat ago. The resounding fury along with the resentment and sorrow brings the solemn disquietude upon Nigel’s nonchalant face. Through the unfathomable abyss of darkness, he could see the moonbeam shine and stars rain upon his form. The air is crisp and chilled and the rustling sigh as the wind whistles through the throng of leaves, he knows his favorite season is near. 

Perched atop the ledge of his flat, he hears the rhythmic click of the other’s shoes. Through the gentle throb of his heart rising to meet the basking array of orange glow contouring through his exposed skin, the grip over his walking stick loosens. The muddied pupils, still full of whiskey radiance as the greens in his pupils dance in a whirling orb. 

He had bled, suffered, cried, even begged to take his own life, ached, sobbed even harder until his quivering frame shattered in million pieces. 

Even when he had been degenerated and scattered, his own tenacious existence remains rebellious in an act of defiance. 

So he will continue to thrive and exist, continue to defy and stand for those who have stuck alongside with him no matter what. For those unified in love shall triumph. 


	27. Chapter 27

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> { Teen Twins, Prince and the Pauper verse, they’re sixteen. In Paris. Nigel gives Hannibal his first blowjob. }

As sliver of long, thickening streak of light cracks into life with its yellowish radiant glow. The line of seeping ink beneath the rim of the sky makes its appearance through the distant horizon as it permeates through the expanse of the clumped clouds. The luminescence of yet another dawning day intensifies as it slants through the ridges of quiet serenity of Montmartre and all the nooks and crannies of the twins’ apartment, perched on the third floor of the quaint and clumped neighborhood. The dense haze swirls thicker and thicker as the setting chillness spawns flakes of crystals, scattering onto the relatively empty street of the daybreak. The rustling wind knocks upon the apartment’s shut window, urging them to rise and shine. 

 

A habitual early-riser, it’s Hannibal’s eyelids which slowly flutter open to life first as usual as soon as he feels the widening presence of the assaulting light coming through the closed curtain just behind him. Yet, the permeated dimness of their flat is too irresistible and resoundingly comfortable for him to be plucked out of. After all, it was the start of their weekend. He had been working on a term paper late into the last night and he had been distracted with Nigel’s relentless teasing, which he finally succumbed under with three quarter of his paper finished. Usually, his meticulous planning ahead had put him in the clear as the deadline had been three days away. It would be no problem to proofread and finish it with a day or even two extra days. Expecting a high mark as he had scrutinized all of his available resources, his radiant and gleaming skin still bore the previous night’s evidences. 

 

Along with tangled sheet and their bodies, in their birthday suits along with Hannibal’s arm wound around Nigel’s middle, the first thing he notices even before the haze behind the maroon disappears is the steady rhythm of his twin’s breathing. His lusciously thick dark blonde tickles against Hannibal’s nostrils as he takes a lengthy inhale, taking the hint of chilled air in. As he doesn’t get the chance to be a bit of a sloth and since Nigel had been studying alongside him and he had been helping his twin to get back to academic track, their weekdays flew by as if hours had been condensed into minutes. Hannibal pivots his hips, pressing his front towards Nigel’s back as he faces away from the basking spread of contouring sunlight. 

 

“...You’re fucking poking me with your morning wood,” Nigel’s low, gravelly voice, along with a sighing exhale breaks the seraphic calm. He actually had been awake as soon as he had felt the other’s fingers closing in against the flat plane of his stomach. “If you wanted a fuck, all you have to do is to voice that out.” Hannibal had been staring at his twin, somewhat transfigured as Nigel looked quite beautiful without his crude intentions and profanities in a blaze of silence. Although it lasted a short duration, Hannibal had appreciated the fleeting moment of serenity, their corporeal communication through muscles and nerves. His words had the power to go off like fireworks. Never unreal, remote and intangible. 

 

Yawning like one of those male lions waking up from the long slumber after satiating their stomachs, Nigel’s hand immediately gravitates towards aforementioned rod. As direct and raw his words had been, his fingers are more like set of blades slicing through the room onto Hannibal’s bare smooth skin. An admission of carnal desire melted upon his unyielding touch, full of willingness and enticement. 

 

Instinctively, Hannibal’s arm tightens around Nigel’s torso as a finger of ice runs up and down the length of his spine. A conduction of orchesta within his body slowly reaches its gradual ascension, as he frees the tangled fibers of the blankets off with a kick. The plastered warmth generated with a great gush of their combined energy would be enough to increase the room’s temperature. 

 

“I’m physiologically well-put, young and mature, not my fault with you pressed onto me like ennui does to the depressed.” The metaphor had been a rather gloomy one, but it had been never correct and his mind clung onto the explanation like it had been a wrecking freight train - he had been exceptionally bright enough to participate and attend one of those observing classes that college students were be able to attend and one of the deceased had been a twenty-year-old, who had committed suicide because of chronic depression and prolonged physical abuse. The other body had belonged to a much-older man, who saw an abrupt end of his still short lifespan as a hit and run had left him bleeding until he breathed his last. The paper had been about the strain or distress put onto the physical body as the rigor mortis set in - the recognizable change as the lifeless body went through its chemical deformation. In return, the agglomeration of his inquiring mind within the voluptuous pleasure they shared coming forth, Hannibal’s eyelids close briefly before registering the impending scrumptious sensation, as throbbing veins around the curve of his neck streak with radiant glow of red. 

 

The effect is instantaneous - as soon as Nigel’s slender fingers wrap around his already swollen and stiff length, his spine reverberates as he feels the profound arousal down to every cell. Only with his twin, he’d be held prisoner to the subjugation of lone sensation. Revealing his truest and rawest nature. Nigel’s hand, in return, turns into a spiralling vortex, with a firm grip, stretching the foreskin over the leaking crown and watches it stretch all the way back close to the base. 

 

“Enlighten me and tell me how you would relieve this then,” deciding to avert things from taking an awkward scholarly turn, Hannibal’s melting gaze shoots honey as it follows the curve of Nigel’s neck. His adam’s apple bobs slightly as the sheets underneath rustle and the mattress creak under their combined, rippling weight. Their pressed hearts and shared breathes makes their perked up nipples to kiss and graze in mid-air, as imperceptible sighs and catch of breath feeds off the titillating gossip between their teasing bodies. 

 

“I could see you in ecstasy and watch you come again like that last time.” Lifting his thighs up and rocking into Nigel’s firm grip, Hannibal’s ebbing heart pumps blood faster than before, the rush of blood quick to tinge his pale skin to take on the rosy color. Pressing the tip of his nose against the crook of Nigel’s neck, Hannibal traces his lips just beneath his twin’s ear. 

 

Not removing his fingers and shifting to lay on his back, Nigel pushes Hannibal off from his top as the other’s leg swings force, encasing him within. “I have a better idea. Get off the fucking bed and stand up facing the bed.” His parched throat hungers for the twin’s taste, as he had imagined many times before, yet, never had carried forth as afterglow sent him into a deep oblivion shortly after their copulatory acts.      

 

His hard erection briefly kissing the twin’s equally throbbing length as his body pendulously swings, their bodies rub and graze under the little covering of the blanket as the positions shift. After few grunts as Hannibal’s teeth presses against his bottom lip, he is able to stand like Nigel has commanded him to do. The sticky substance begins to coat Nigel’s fingers as the tight velvety skin stretches over the engorged head. 

 

The curve of Nigel’s lips quirk up in a smirk as the tip of the tongue presses onto the slit. “I want to fucking taste this, maybe even let you cover my face like one of those porn guys do.” 

 

With a sweep of his tongue mirroring the twin’s voracious lust, a decisive stroke of anticipation licks over Hannibal’s fluttering skin. A hand reaches over, scratching through Nigel’s scalp and tugs the thick matted locks behind his twin’s neck. “I want you to go slow, I want to feel your tongue all over the place.” 

 

Perched close to the edge of the bed, Nigel’s ass slides down as he kneels in front of Hannibal’s parted legs. A flat side of his tongue presses against the warmth of viscous leaking fluid, and encompasses the length while his hand stimulates Hannibal’s testicles. As he scoops them from underneath and trying to find that special spot that would bring more rousing sensation out of his twin, Nigel’s own hard erection rests gingerly against his constricted stomach, puffing a series of hard exhales as Hannibal’s thick length waters his mouth even further.  

 

Through ever growing breathless breaths and becoming more erogenous with Nigel’s lapping, Hannibal’s hands disappear beneath his twin’s long locks. His modulated breathing slowly egging on as he transports into the realm of bliss. Fondling and massaging through the sphere of Nigel’s skull, the lascivious warmth slosh within his mouth, bathing upon the affectionate gesture as the slow ministration becomes more desperate. 

 

The warm cavern of Nigel’s mouth envelops Hannibal’s whole length, before the dripping tip completely fills Nigel’s airway and he chokes, his gagging reflex working against his intentions as he hacks, his teeth digging into the folded crease of Hannibal’s foreskin. 

 

“Ahh.. You’re doing good, keep going,” the urge to kiss those curved lipgloss lips become enraptured as Hannibal gazes downward as his body, already drenched in a waterfall of chocolate - ambrosial, delectable and richly satisfying.  

 

Instead of withdrawing, Nigel persistently carries on, as his tongue continues to draw a corkscrewing movement. Through the ascending odor of musk, his caress upon Hannibal’s testicles continue, as he squeezes each hardened ball with varying pressure. 

 

Leaning forward and meeting Hannibal’s steam bath gaze with his own brand of strong eye contact, his pale eyebrows raise as his own length aches and stings. A drizzle contouring through the wrinkled rod, their coalescing scents merging them beyond their tangible connection. With much effort as Nigel’s jaw stretch to accommodate the whole length down to its throbbing base with more blood flow, Hannibal’s fluttering eyelids clam shut, drowning himself within the somatic phenomenon as his body locks in familiar petrifying spasms as a poignant sting curls his fingers deeper into Nigel’s ashen blonde. 

 

Nigel feels the warm tip kiss deep into the back of his throat and then, he feels Hannibal’s form still with distinctive shudder, as heavy load of spurting wash fills his mouth. Hannibal’s hips squeeze as he plunges deeper into the blazing inferno assailing downward as he empties, an incredulous satisfaction marches upon his intense release. 

 

With a deepening scowl, Nigel’s cheeks plump up as the taste had been not at all what he had expected. It has a bit of sweet tang to it, yet, the overwhelming fishiness refuses to go down as he strains to swallow. An arching spine pressing onto the side of the bed as Nigel pulls himself free, a string of saliva with lingering dense bead dribbles from his lower lip lasciviously. “You taste fucking horrible,” Nigel heaves a pant, as his quickened heartbeat stomps against his eardrums like throng of excited clubgoers’ footsteps.

 

“I heard pineapple juice could be an effective remedy,” letting go of Nigel’s hair as Hannibal kneels to press his body against his twin’s, his index trace the saliva still hanging from the corner of Nigel’s mouth. “Healthier diet makes the taste better, I didn’t quite think yours were that tolerable anyway.” 

 

Winding his body as soon as his rasping breath regains its normalcy, the corner of Nigel’s lips quirk up in a hint of serpentine slyness. Pinning Hannibal down as he surges for a kiss, he slurps and deflates his cheeks, depositing Hannibal’s load into the other’s mouth. His own spilling length traps between their stomachs as he ruts against it, the insatiable addiction urged forth with an intense permeating scent of their locked embrace. 

  
“Still awakening and electrifying, don’t you think?” Nigel’s tongue seeps across the hard edge of Hannibal’s jawline, where he feels the life underneath jump with wondrous hint of vigor.   


	28. Chapter 28

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nigel x Gabi. Five kisses challenge.

##  _Love Forever_ , Nigel. 

The world begins to whorl as the unspoken strings of words hangs even more profound than the beauty of all the decorativeness and elaborate eloquence. the complex of the cosmos and percolated remission of dominance and control. Through the omitted silence between what she said and what he thought, the crude imperceptible ripple of Nigel’s lips utter both heartily exuberance and dizzying intoxication as Gabi’s lips coalesce to plaster upon his sun-drenched skin. The ruffling autumn breeze, a celebration of their unification. 

 

##  _I am the captain of my soul._

Yet, you bestow such limerence undeserving for such an untamed creature. The threshold of the vibrancy, gaudy debauchery as others plummet through the unplumbed cattiness and assertion. Crossing the irreparable, impending allure of wicked forbidden territory. Its ephemeral lecherousness delectable as he sinks into unfathomable depth of her charm. Two love stricken birds, twisted upon flesh and blood, jet-black saturation of lust and sultriness draws him upon her. The wicked enchantress with powers of wire-puller.   

 

## Hello, Gorgeous.

He declares, on his soul and conscience, that the attainment of divine rapture, transported as your name etches through the flaring expanse of your creamy skin. When love and skill coalesce together, their sonorous undulation paints a milky way upon the great masterpiece - immeasurably extended in time and space as the uncharted constitution intermingles through stiffening movements and extraordinarily explosive rhythm of whizzes, winded and desperate. I’d spill cornucopia of exhales, along with ablaze of incineration bringing rhapsodical incitement. Through overflow and paroxysm. 

 

##  _God_ knows it can all turn into blood 

 _In a blink of an eye_. A sinister detour, though I have remained immured in her glowing luminescence and the appetizingly delectable desire he holds with blazing spark of fire within those oozing whiskey, he prescinds his thoughts from asphyxiating himself. As if he had been reduced into a two-dimensional simplicity upon the zipping world, a peculiar placidity brims through the diaphanous orbs. Transfixed in place and the last denouement of oozing detonation of unquenchable and potent surge of emotion, he stands spellbound. Cascading destruction manifests upon his skin as he crosses the inevitable. 

 

## ‘Til _Death_ Do Us Fucking Part.

More than the absolute deathly silence of inquietude, Nigel’s aplomb remains intact. Yet, the spilling emotion is enough to end the world in wildfire. From ice to fire in an instant. Memories would fade, people remain headstrong, faces age, bodies go through its permeable change and details fray like threadbare shirts. Darkness rushes to permeate and destroy the light as it holds the leash upon himself. None of these will taint and muddy the vivid animated recollections and frenetic waltz of his bleeding heart. Subjugated by the last farewell, all the punishment and pain, unhappiness and despair, melts away as his impassioned gaze brews with a sense of gallant bravery. 

The moonbeam turns like a silvery blade as the unconquerable soul with broken heart and corroding skeletons begin to fade and vanish. He recites the poetry over and over again with the flaring electrical charges, the last corporeal presence as a renewed confidence installs within him. The last conduct of the his primordial finale.   


	29. Chapter 29

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> seven: my muse will leave your muse a tearful voicemail  
> A short drabble I wrote for an OC character I'm interacting on tumblr. 
> 
> salvatorul meu = my savior.

Within his peripheral vision, all he sees is red. His limbs lie heavily upon the asphalt, fixed upon like a trace of chalk line over the blackened surface and cocooned in a bed of splintered woods and glasses sticking out from his rag-like shirt. Already painted opal-black under the unforgiving full moon just overhead as his diaphanous gaze maintains its stubborn tenacity, refusing to close down to take the world around him in. The flickering light above him gradually diminishes and soon, with a dazzling spark, extinguishes forever in an ominous manner. A Jackson Pollock-painting coming into a three-dimensional life. Full of splattered blood, bits and pieces of skin and tissue, cracked bones and fluttering skins, the pungent scent of spilled viscera, the rush of goosebumps immediately taking over his flesh in a survival attempt to signal the inevitable danger, the shutting life as crimson rapidly exiting his body like a hydraulic dam breaking open. 

 

Along with a heady scent of his own fluids as his weighty head, heavier than the Atlas as he continues to fight the sinking quagmire feel of oblivion. The only thing greeting him in the center of his still-focused vision is the lifeless, motionless gaze of the dead, reflecting his own as he’d follow soon after. There are only intermittent ebb and flow of strained breaths, gradually fading and vanishing, with the soul occupying their corporeality. Everything reduces into a dimmed, deathly silence as he hears the last roaring engine exude noxious smoke towards his direction, another added humiliation upon his part. 

 

Fighting through the lassitude of his muscles and fetching his burner cell from his front pocket, more fountain of blood pools beneath him in a sinister puddle. The bent curve of his back unconsciously ripples in shock as his vision reduces further, curtaining off the world as he lethargically blanks. Dialing the quick dial and pressing the number, Nigel hopes she doesn’t answer. Don’t fucking answer it, it might make things hella easier if you fucking didn’t. 

 

After three rings, it goes over to the voicemail and he bites his lower lip as an uncharacteristically high moan slips through his clenched lips. “Wolf, it’s me,” his voice undulates between his usual baritone and his typical slur, a bit higher than his usual speaking voice. “I know you’d be waiting for me on that very fucking spot where we met, that little clearing between the big oak tree and the stream,” his eyelids flutter, as another gush intensifies his erratic palpitation. His heart desperately trying to pump the blood which simply is insufficient. 

 

“I won’t be coming back tonight,” a scalding trail paints and curves around his cheekbone as his whole facade etches deeply with incinerating pain. It feels like his own skin is burning with blazing embers. “Goodbye, _salvatorul meu.”_

 

With the last forceful exhale, his half-shut eyelids open back up, then looks over at the phone’s screen, before hearing the other pick up the receiver.  


	30. Chapter 30

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An anon request.

The overhead sunbeam remains to be merciless and resolute against the rooftop, where Nigel lays on a slanted sun chair, dangerously close to the edge of the pool along with a half-empty bottle of imported whiskey perched atop the slatted cup holder. In nude and with Hannibal’s museum documents covering his groin, with the manila folder shielding the unforgiving sun, the brim of the sunglasses tangle inside his disheveled hair like dense vines crawling up the crevice of the castle walls. 

 

It wraps his head like an animal’s mane, while his limbs hang lifelessly against the edge of the steel, glistening with a film of sweat and the sunscreen wearing off from his sun-kissed coppery skin in excessive sweat. 

 

He looked more like a body washed ashore on the beach, baked along with the sand, molding and locking his body’s outline in place with flushed cheeks accentuating his prominent cheekbones even more as he dreams of rhythmic washing waves not far from their residence. The Mediterranean sea was barely an hour’s drive, but their busy as bee life had restricted them to venture around the outskirts of Marrakesh. 

 

Hannibal had been disposed in a nearby local museum, lecturing about the Illuminated Islamic manuscripts. Its beauty, penmanship and binding simply enthralled him, as countless hours turned into minutes as if he had been plummeted through a bottomless hole, inescapable in its own. As a head curator of the museum in Fez, it meant he had unrestricted access to all of the unique and priceless treasures, without anyone to sabotage his utmost concentration as he delved into the artifacts, which seem to transcend time. 

 

Speaking of enthrallment and enchantment, Hannibal had missed the welcoming respite they would finally get after grueling loads of work and his twin, as their schedules often conflicted and slothful weekends and sleeping in had been an indulgence and extravagance they both couldn’t afford. He looked forward to returning his presence upon where they had first set foot in an exotic foreign country. 

 

Marrakesh remained to be vibrant with vivid colors, with doggone days of summer soon behind them, they would re-explore and let the memory replay in reenactment. Through colorful alleyways full of eclectic cafes and eateries they hadn’t sought after, they would leave no stone unturned as the pleasant weather unfolded upon them in full radiance. They could even take a road trip, jumping lesser known towns and neighborhoods like skipping stones. 

 

With bubbling enthusiasm rubbing off his posture and appearance, Hannibal’s steps seem almost weightless as he starts up the stairs, looking for his twin. Knowing Nigel frequents basking under the seeping grandeur of orange luminosity, like long arms stretching and swaying back and forth upon the contours of hard muscles and dips along with the slightly dry wind. 

 

Slipping off his jacket and undoing his tie after putting his briefcase down against one of the armchairs, he raises a curious eyebrow, eyeing Nigel’s peeping skin through the slatted chair. Sneakily tiptoeing towards his sound asleep twin, his fingers carefully work through the thick wad of paper and folder before managing to pluck them away without Nigel ever finding out. 

 

A slightest hint of playfulness tugging at his thinned lips, Hannibal removes the cuffs and pulls the sleeves up the crook of his elbows before giving a forceful push upon Nigel’s side, watching the slanted chair tip over before his twin splashes into the rather cold water in the most unceremonious manner. Limbs thrown over, as if he had frog-leaped into the water stomach-first. 

 

With a sharp and inflating intake of breath, the water immediately surges through the throat, making its way deep into the lung as his shocked body immediately sends a fight of flight response. Another sharp gasp makes his head to bob against the head-deep water, as Nigel makes his way back to the shallow part of the large-sized private pool. Hacking the water out in sprays, Nigel shoots daggers against Hannibal’s amused and entertained face and grouches like an angry Donald Duck. 

 

Giving Hannibal one last portent gaze, his almond eyes narrow and pinch tightly together as his glistening coppery body emerges, all tensed muscles and flexing grip, veins surging with vindictive purpose as Nigel approaches his brother in his usual swagging saunter. Fingers immediately tug through Hannibal’s hair, impeccably pushed back without a lock out of place. As his jaw tips, Nigel’s cruel lips plaster without a wiggling room, his bare body adhered against Hannibal’s still clothed body. He feels their erections kiss through the tan trousers. 

 

Asking seems redundant, so does completely undressing Hannibal, as he could very well turn the well-tailored suit into nothing as the costly fabric turns tattered rag.  


	31. Chapter 31

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *Brangioji Mažoji Sesutė || Lecter Twins Headcanon  
> ( *Dear Little Sister in Lithuanian )

The rush of blood immediately retracts within his core as his extended fingers feel numbed by the frigid wind. Each whirling whip turns into gleaming blade upon his pronounced cheekbones as it paints his tanned skin a crimson shade. He’s dressed too thin for the weather, only in his burgundy button-down with the leather jacket, contouring and hugging planes of his muscles through the thin lining underneath and his favorite leatherlike pants, a bit of silvery sheen on the front side, reflecting the unperturbed crystals of the pristine snow.

 

Without him even realizing it, the ankle boots he wears clicks together intermittently, the surging coldness claiming his appendages as he stands rooted to the place. His muscles want to protest in defiance, yet, the nerves stretched throughout his body obstinately refuses to cooperate as the only source of warmth remains to be the bitterness of the tobacco, fleetingly cutting through the chill of the despair.

 

An unreadable expression seem to quickly pass through his brooding features, then it starts to linger like percolating coffee grounds. His trauma expands and breaks all the bones within his soul, the porous skeleton with permanent holes inside. He feels considerably weakened as muscles quiver and skin bristle with goosebumps.  

 

> _Through incomparable bitterness, desperation and ruefulness, he watches with helpless gaze. His weak limbs, appearing too emaciated and pallid with ghastly skin, as if drained of his usual vigor and virility. The vast sky seem to crush him in, the immaculateness, the symbolism of purity has been already tainted with his traumatic experience. Nigel knows he had been absolutely powerless at that time and even if he had tried, all of his efforts would have been reduced useless. The scent of death still heavily lingers in the air in his mind, until he feels like he’s suffocating with the revolting scent of the blood and sinews, pulverized and disintegrated until he couldn’t even recognize who it was. Like a demon waiting for his sacrificed prey, he sees a horrible streak of light through it all - he had chosen a survivalist’s way out, instead of suffering in the merciless bout of the Mother Earth._
> 
>  
> 
> _He had fortified the barriers as high as the castle walls, indestructible, unreachable, yet there had been a single profound weakness. Whoever clever enough would be able to round the obstruction and find their way in. They would slowly tear, rip, gnaw apart the small fiber, becoming threads and holes that held his fragile heart together. An illusion, yet painfully tangible and not merely ostensible. Its essentialness an inescapable shackle upon his psyche. The intangible reality continually becomes a lucid dream, the disturbing images of his sister immediately plucks his brimming unconsciousness-like reverie back to stark and vivid reality. Pulverized bones rattling against mama’s pot, scarlet spectacle that not even the nutritious soil could ever embrace along with flayed skin still screaming for the previous precious life it lived. His frantic breaths suctioned right out of him as his mentally exhausted body becomes numb with something akin to a sleep paralyzation._
> 
>  

Too well aware of his escalated ebb and flow of his heart, aggravated to transform into the roaring engine of his bike, he feels his heart being wrung out. The simultaneously contrasting sensation, his frenetic sultry heart battles against the frostbiting limbs, benumbed as his view drenches with red. He always had been fond of that hue, yet, it becomes an endless array of pins and needles upon his skin as the idea of disintegration overwhelms him. The idea of insufflation becomes as labored as if his lungs have been deflated until he has no room to expand his chest cavity.

 

Feeling like flickering light upon the obsidian darkness, the gradual moonbeam along with the untarnished purity of the flurry does nothing to blanket him with yearning warmth. Almost entirely filled with void as he lets one word linger against his still warm lips.

 

In hushed tones as he regards the world with half-shut gaze, his drawn, deep ridges of his eyebrows pinch slowly, as he suppresses the scalding embers behind the diaphanous orbs.

 

 _Mischa_.


	32. Chapter 32

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An anon request.  
> Lecter Twins. A Kiss of Relief & Tending an injury  
> Nigel gets injured enough, so why not reverse the situation? I'm sure Hannibal doesn't get injured as remotely often as his counterpart does.

He could still feel the rough graveled walls of the industrial building scrape and chafe through his prominent cheekbones as the assailant had shoved him hard enough for his vision to double over. The solidity of the building blurs in obscurity before he is able to sniff a familiar scent of the individual who had been a careless brute to leave a prominent, striking evidence. The chalky dryness soon turns into a bitter annoyance, as he had forgotten to slip the scalpel beneath his cuff like he did usually. He could pivot his hips and subdue this bastard easily, however, he doesn’t need to exert violence when there are cornucopia of eyes around him. Yet, the bystander effect is a wonderful thing when it comes to thinking, in Nigel’s words. _Thank fuck it isn’t me._

 

Leaving his slumbering brother alone, slipping off from his own reverie as he had forged yet another surreptitious masterpiece, he had been abruptly pulled out of his safe haven with a vibrating phone inside his front pocket. He simply decided to take a fifteen-minute walk, so none of his priced possessions were accompanying with him. 

 

The physical brutality doesn’t elicit any hint of distress or emotion behind his apathetic facade. He could feel the minute quirk of his cruel, sinister lips, as the crook swipes his greedy fingers and palms over Hannibal’s lower half, in search for a fat wallet full of withdrawn cash or his coveted American Express black plastic. 

 

Unsuccessful as Hannibal had neither of these in his possession, the thief simply walks away with a frustrated slash upon Hannibal’s three-piece suit, through the overcoat which Nigel had given him as a rather careless gift upon his business trip. Hannibal could already see Nigel’s agitated face, brewing with unchecked anger along the immeasurable depth of the fluttering hazel.

 

Baltimore, where the high, thriving and modernized architecture coalesced along with the grim, bleak and industrial-looking constructions, Hannibal didn’t frequent this part of the desolate part of town in the brink of demolition. The only reason of him being in this part of the town was to offer a genuine, heartfelt condolence of the recently deceased patient of his. After so many unsuccessful attempts at his life, the fifth time had been the charm. He had seen the ravaged body, drained of all life fluids as the ghostly-pale, too scrawny figure addled with lifelong use of drugs and substances finally extinguished its fluttering light.

 

Hannibal barely twitches his eyebrow nor shows a sign of afflicted pain as he simply stares the thief disappearing behind myriads of slanting shadows. A throng of rush-hour traffics along with heavy foot traffic overwhelms the particularly busy office district as he curves around his parked Bentley around the secluded intersection. The protruding foreign object prevents him from losing too much blood, yet it’s still escaping in a minute amount. The slashing hadn’t been that deep and the blade still held the attacker’s fingerprint. With a face calm as the kissing waves of the ocean, Hannibal’s sweeping fingertips brushes his cheek and feels a brimming drop of blood paint a warm trail along the curve of his jaw and his neck. He licks it clean, rolling his tongue around as he retrieves a key, effectively hidden beneath one of the bricks where he had planted a small safe in cases like this. 

 

As soon as Hannibal quietly slips inside and slips his overcoat off, a frown etches both of the twins’ face. Hannibal, because of all the fine dust settling over the impeccably polished hard wood and the rug he had just managed to clean himself, and Nigel, his still sleep-laden orbs traverse upward to register Hannibal’s scraped face. Hazel pupils widening as his gaze flickers between Hannibal’s face and bleeding side, Nigel jumps up from the confinement of his mold and caresses a rough thumb over myriads of scratched marks. 

 

“What the _fuck_ happened to your face and what in the _fucking world_ is this?” 

 

Wordless, Hannibal simply chucks off layers of his clothes and utters an audible hiss when the waistcoat catches upon the hilt of the pocket knife. “None other than an inferior street robber. Be a dear and please fetch me my scalpel.” 

 

Huffing a frustrated breath, Nigel stomps through the living room and retrieves a small satchel, full of the usual first-aid supplies. Hannibal perches himself carefully upon the chaise lounge and accesses the damage. No need for stitches, but it would take a while to properly heal. 

 

Raising a crooked eyebrow and standing askance, Nigel applies the disinfectant on bunch of cotton pads and almost thrusts Hannibal’s scalpel with the handle-side towards his brother. “Get that fucking thing off before I take care of this.” 

 

Hannibal’s amused quirked lips draw a slight curve along the corner of his lips as he raises a skeptical and entertained eyebrow. The combination of Nigel’s almost naked form, the contours of his manhood visible through the low-cut boxer briefs and the serious grim gaze of how his volatile twin sets off with his given task is simply incomparable not to crack a grin. 

 

“You know I am more than capable of taking care of this, this doesn’t require any…”

 

Shutting Hannibal up as parted lips seek closure upon Hannibal’s already wiggling one, Nigel’s fingers holding the damp cotton pads press against Hannibal’s left cheek. Barely painless sensation now manifests as small pins and needles and Hannibal presses his hand against defined curve around the side of Nigel’s jaw as the minute pain manifests into being something entirely else.  


	33. Chapter 33

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Forever: Write about a never-ending night. What did it feel like, look like, taste like?

It was one of those nights where the boundary between consciousness and oblivion refuse to let go its intermingled nature. Instead of spending futile time trying to immerse himself into a slow descent, which his corporeality simply refused to sink into the lulling sensation, he decided to be out on his rooftop where his professional life coalesced and threaded with his personal. Through fragments of broken shards and rusty tang of blood, still visible in chipped flecks strewn over the slanted ledge. Perched against his usual spot with an arm propped against his head, the tip of his barefoot heel thumps against the gravelly cement. He could feel the fine dust suspend into the air along with his languid exhale, the ectoplasm’s calming effect washing over him. 

 

The transcending milky way unfolds overhead is filled with obsidian sparkles of diamond dusts and ashes, as celestial bodies turn into dazzling array of jewels. _Boom_ , _boom_ , a fluttering sonic boom radiates within the tangible confinements of slatted ribs, his lean muscle’s palpitation too close against the base of his throat and chest cavity. He could still feel the defiant protest from the fibers of his muscles, subtle, yet painfully perceivable. A languid torpidity looms over as he feels the caress of both miasma and pungent metallic tang of his blood, seeping through the tight restraint of bandages. 

 

Still hovering between the edge of the consuming waterfall and indescribable and incomparable rush of both ear-splitting roar of the engine beneath him along with his cleared headspace, he places himself over the beastly streamlined body of a cheetah. Along with his own vigor of well-toned musculature, the one which he had tamed come to its vivid, thriving life as a wild stallion. With the wind turning gleaming adamantine blades as he encases within the tinted visors, the world blurs in distinguished strokes, Abstract, yet trailing hues and chroma convey all things necessary. The sweet pinecones, nostalgic scent of the petrichor, the crackling fire with perfectly cooked meat. Where the moonbeam transpires itself to etch through the unperturbed lake, creating multitudes of quivering impressions upon the unfathomable depth. 

 

_Would he sink into an oblivion there and then? As the arching bike devours his darkened spectre as the vortex spirals him down, suctioning him into the black hole as he crosses the event horizon._

 

The velocity of the whooshing air itself acts as the most potent stimulant, and he finds completely mesmerized, as his tangible form slowly disintegrates and metamorphoses into the ring of fire. Resurgence, a finality as he could scent the charring edges upon his flesh as he takes a dramatic curve. Restrained by the exquisite transformation within his pensiveness, the patch of daybreak gradually widens into a thin strip and he smokes through the last cigarette inside his crumpled pack. As if the bitter tobacco had been a catalyst for his wishful thinking. The indispensable fuel to set a breakneck pace upon his plummet towards the most deepest slumber he could achieve.  


	34. Chapter 34

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Metaphors of Monstrosity || Werewolf!Nigel headcanon

Like a long-time companion, pallor had already seeped through Nigel’s skin as a succession of scalding wave of twisting, unbearable heat spreads like a sweeping wildfire upon his usual coppery healthy skin. There was no exquisite beautifulness accommodating with the strands of violence weaved along the pores and veins of his existence, nor the strange sensuality he always goes through and associates with the threading pain itself. Fighting through the doubling, reducing vision and his body sinking limp like a rag doll, he is barely able to snap his eyes open to register the striking evidence of violence recorded upon his skin like paint splotches and decisive and confident stroke of a croquis line. The widening black slowly draws over as his own consciousness hangs by a thread. 

 

Strained breaths squeezes out from his constricting lungs as he looks through dishevelled locks, plastered haphazardly against his prominent cheek. His own blood, sweat, the assailants’ arterial spray intermingles with his heavy exhaustion as a scalding trail of fresh crimson trails the curve of his temple. Not having his guard completely down with a reserve of his concentration still left in him along with his persistence, he slips into something akin to a _prompt_ sleep; a brief loss of his _consciousness_ before the infesting grogginess serves as an almost futile wake-up call, upon his tense muscles and unending waves of rippling haze. His head whirls like an unending vortex, the boundary between the earth and his own appendages become muddled.

 

Abruptly, after fleeting cloying sweetness of the kiss lands upon the back of his brain as his form leaves a semi-permanent dent upon the softened earth, more warping pain writhes through the strands of his muscles before their pressed flesh ripples with a greater force than their own. A thrusting motion sends his head to helplessly swirl in the midst of an open water, his wobbling feet clashing down against the rough bark. The venomous gleam of blade quickly lifts the heavy blankets upon his ears and eyes, as he still savors the lingering kiss upon his sensual lips. _Let the motherfuckers talk all they want. He’d lash out with the last reserve he has within his body before the other side plucks his soul right off from his battered form._

 

Before succumbing into the irresistible drowsiness and exquisite flare of pain blanketing every orifice of him, all he recalls is his own thrusting limbs suspended like dust, stamping and trampling their side and back until he hears the sickening snap of porous bones, terrible screams of two of them as fury, metastasizing faster through his vessel and veins like malignant cells metamorphoses into devastating punches and jabs. More fatal and barbaric than the endless round of bullets, the noxious gas in the chamber full of innocents. Turning them into filthy stinking bodies, and making them even worse than rotting carcasses of wild animals, only to be devoured by the ones like them. Giving it all within what his bruised and pummeled body could exert, he watches the blood eject like a swishing spindrift like foamy gale of the sea, turning into the whirling surface of existence as he falls straight onto his stomach, welcoming the submerging sensation of that awful flood.

 

Through flying limbs and desperate and valiant attempt to thwart himself from meeting an unexpected demise, he fails to register the gleaming red set of eyes penetratingly taking in the exquisite scene. Insides flying, splattering and flopping all around the mother Earth as Nigel’s ravaged body fuels itself upon incorrigible awareness he didn’t even know he had within himself. He was a collection of _paradoxes_ , _flaws_ , _misfortunes_ , and _disappointments_ , although he obstinately denied the accusation, voiced from his own damn subconsciousness. He wasn’t a hideous creatures born out of a gutter and a swamp, insidious demons that would pluck the souls of humans, nor malicious evil spirits that inspired malevolence. When his underlying, kindled fire meets the surging tides, he becomes an embodiment of that concept. After Nigel sinks into a silence of an oblivion, the werewolf emerges from the thicket of dense bush. He is unlike any other wolves - he relishes in display of threatening aggression and had been prone to ravaging through humans at times, yet, his almost simper-like smile proves that he’s even more vehemently powerful than any other shapeshifters could imagine. He doesn’t have to bear those massive canines to remind anyone that these clenched jaws would open anyone’s yielding throat like no one’s business. His thick saliva riddled with infectious genetic lycanthropy, a potent cocktail full of rage and hunger. 

 

He had secretly watched from afar, have marvelled at Nigel’s unchecked fury, spreading rapid like a wildfire upon the barren desolate earth. Regardless of that now, the gleaming porcelain-like teeth perforates through his existing wound. It would be so effortless to tear through the gaping flesh, teetering between stubborn life and equally appealing death, yet the old werewolf tightly clenches his slipping instinct. Perhaps the werewolf himself had been a _revenant_ , a harbinger of something more _catastrophic_. The process would be immediate, as the bacteria duplicates itself in the open veins as simultaneously, Nigel’s wounds would seal up, permanently binding along with his somatic cells. The human would live, along with his humanity, with pertinacious grip on the vanishing life. 

 

Nigel would be kicking alive and well soon enough with vial of medicine and blood. As long as the blunt force against his temple didn’t cause a devastating hemorrhages. The shapeshifter retreats back into the darkness along with Nigel’s drooped, passed out body. A faint presentment tells the werewolf that Nigel’s gentle tremor was a harbinger of something. A premise of growing force akin to spindrift blowing off the waves and foamy clots rolling along the water’s edge. 

 

A heartbeat after, a faint hint of huff stirs the thick dark umber hide as Nigel tastes his own blood contouring through the corner of his lips. Squeezing his eyes tight and feeling his fingertips rake through the bristled surface, he goes through the feeling of being completely rootless and ephemeral. Colossal waves of throbbing pulses soon become gentle stream, like a draught earth drinking in a long, luxurious rays slanting through the barrenness. Imminently, there would be the onslaught of the rain, completely quenching the ravenous thirstiness, as a mere brush upon it would be the whirling surface of his existence. He could feel his muscles dilate and contract, his form dyed deep rusty red, along with a sensation akin to red ants crawling all over his skin. 

 

Through the minute spasms traveling down his muscles, he feels the spark of generated electricity become a rumble of thunder streaking the veins. The erupting strength, seemingly mystic as the festering wounds slowly seal in closure. 


	35. Chapter 35

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's one of those angst memes where my muse (Kekipi, @awokenbymadness' muse)’s reaction to watching yours (yours truly, Nigel) die from afar. 
> 
> T.T I shouldn't have asked.

Kekipi kicked and screamed trying to pull away from the hunter’s grasp to get to Nigel. They had been ambushed. She didn’t turn in time, they had her pelt. She squirmed in the man’s grip, trying to set herself free to get Nigel away from the men who had him. A knife to his chest. It would only be a matter of time before they plunged the blade through his chest.

The hunter tsked, shaking his head as he twisted the blade a little against his chest. He poked his bottom lip out, cocking a brow before looking at Kekipi. He smirked, letting out a chuckle before taking the knife away. “For the first time,I have never seen you so scared, she-wolf. I’ve finally found something that would get you to crack, huh?” He said, looking back at Nigel.

“Take this moment to watch as your little pet scream to get to you… Know she failed to try to save you this time,” he said, plunging the blade into Nigel’s chest, getting a terrified and anger filled scream from Kekipi as she bowed her head. “You fucker!!” She screamed, “You’ll pay for this!” she said, looking back up as the hunters let Nigel fall, allowing him to die there in front of her. She was helpless to him like this.

The hunter laughed, looking at the she-wolf and gave a nod to one of his hunters. The hunter who had her stabbed her in the side of the thigh with a ash covered blade, making her scream out as he threw her to the ground and walked passed her as the other threw down her pelt. The hunter couldn’t help but smirk, watching her as she held herself, growling and crying before she got up and quickly went to Nigel as fast as she could with a limp to try in any way to aid him. He shook his head and walked away with his crew, soon disappearing into the dark forest.

Kekipi opened his shirt, trying to keep herself from crying as she tried to stop the blood. She looked up to his face, tears blinding her before she reached up with her now bloody hands and held his face. She shook her head, pressing her forehead against his. “Please, Nigel… Don’t go… Don’t leave me here…N-Not like this…” she whispered, closing her eyes tightly.

___

 

Pallor slowly begins to take on its full strength as the color gradually seeps out as if writhed out from his hardened and rough skin. Shuffling his shoulders and futilely trying to break his restraint, in a form of a coarse rope serving as a makeshift handcuff, two men had their unbreakable hold against his bent legs and shoulders. Kneeled upon the very ground they had met in multitude. Where the luscious color of gold, as sweet and bountiful it can be as the great fiery sun rose over the lake. The shading clumps of the leaves offering an umbrella to the unforgiving sun of the midday. Now, sun had long vanished with an eerie portent glow, as _vile_ and _noxious_ as an infernal deed is about to take place. 

Even when his own mortality is being threatened like a _consumable_ (and easily replaceable) toy on the assembly line, his composure remains to be poised. Almost _sangfroid_ , with an air of arctic despair. Beneath it all, there’s a whirling maelstrom brewing with such an intensity, his body quivers with the spasming ripple. With a slightly spaced out gaze, he lets the night view become a giant, muddled swirl of silvery threads, as celestial bodies intermingle within his scalding, diaphanous hazel. He could feel electrically charged particles flare through each vertebrae as his life remains to be beneath a ticking time bomb. A flame torch flaming in the dense mist as it violently sways. 

The first contact upon his bare skin draws out a drop of blood, slowly forming a faint sphere, before intermingling with a trail of sweat formed around a slight dip of his pectorals. _Even if I don’t make it, I’ll fucking get you somehow, I’m dragging you motherfuckers down to my destination, the gates of limbo._ Still unperturbed, he huffs a great breath as his tussled locks do nothing to shield his venomous glare as the throbbing sensation intensifies. The fire spreads behind his eyes, threatening to push through above his dark-circled, slightly sunken skin. He completely inebriates in the memories, as they deserve to be fully appreciated and honored, instead of burying deep within his safe niches of his mind and living himself alone that feels so painfully empty without her by his side.  

A strange sense of calm washes over him when the sinisterly cruel curve of silver blade tears through the layers. The drumming sensation intensifies as it seeps off his feet in a vehement surge of tidal wave, while an acute stab of pain, dominates his somatic cells as he inadvertently trembles before sinking beneath the unmeasurable depth of the earth. It’s a fitting and almost an intimate death for him, _just like how he was supposed to go._ Watching what had been haunting his dreams and waking hours as he had went through an illusion-like oblivion. Too _corporeal_ , a painful halt of his bones and flesh locking him in complete petrification. He lets himself fall, a gravitational pull upon the very soil he had shed copious amount of blood as he almost turned to stardusts and dusts. A bubbling stream of blood disembogues with the preexisting ones, as his uneven breaths of distress wrecks his body in agonizing convulsion. The blade itself incinerates further with his body heat, pinning him down like a helpless insect as his head rolls limply. 

A profuse surge makes Nigel to whimper in pain, his throat clicking with heavy metallic tang gushing out from his lips and nostrils. Hacking and spluttering out jets of blood, his normally focused, intense and emotional eyes are glassy and unfocused, as he sees ambiguous blurred shapes instead of clear-cut boundaries. His body instinctively melts into Kekipi’s as he struggles to breath out. Half-lidded depth of his eyes slowly begin to lose its luster, as his jaw slowly slacks. The fading clutch of his tenacious hold fraying by the heartbeat.  

Then, a complete silence as a flutter of exhale coats his upper lip, trailing down the curve of his still neck. Curled fingers, an evidence of his obstinate effort present through the chafing of his wrists and livid bruises, lax with long fleeted vigor and life. 


	36. Chapter 36

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Revedere, Dragă Frate || Lecter Twins 
> 
> ‘Good bye, dear brother,’ in Romanian. Title chosen to mirror Nigel’s (permanent) departure to Bucharest, Romania - which means he could’ve used their native language (Lithuanian), but chosen deliberately to seize their relationship.
> 
> This is not a headcanon, just an impulsive writing at its best. I can't promise the quality.

Limp fingers quiver with the last stretch of life before it sempiternally ceases, as Hannibal’s small electric saw works through the circumference of Trevor’s head, or better, _what’s_ left of his skull. The basement grows eerier with the familiar darkness seeping in faster than the radiation spreading, as the last intense flame of sunbeam sinks beneath the suffocating darkness. Twins’ movements are like reptant snakes, _coiled_ , with slowed breath and honed concentration before the hypodermic fang buries deep within the prey’s neck. The small stream of continuous crimson creates a puddle beneath Trevor’s feet, the color as black as burnt molasses, the potency as thick as tar. An inescapable eradication of the wretched being who caused them _inconvenience_. 

 

The exposed meat of the brain oozes with effervescing crimson and viscous fluids, threatening to brim over like overfilled water bubbling as the flame beneath the pot refuses to be extinguished. Along with the amalgamating liquids which create a heavy cascade upon the young man’s trembling face, in turn, manifests into being more of a diabolical atrocity upon Trevor’s already wrecked form. As he stays behind to let Hannibal exert his own brand of Hammurabi’s code, Nigel’s features set in a grim line. An _amusement_ soon transforms itself into a hubbub of the crowd, stomping and stampeding upon his constricted core and rings through his tympanum like booming thunder though contrasting flare of little sparks of excitement. Both _fossilization_ and surmounting _irritation_ thrum his frantic heart, as his veined hand catches the faint scent of the iron-rich blood, contouring through the grip of his revolver. 

 

 _The man who he had loved with everything, was now going to consume him for what would be left of him_. This had been Trevor’s last reeling thought before his vision scalds behind his slipping shut eyelids. Almond-shaped and intense eyes slowly flutter close, then snaps right open as the cessation of mortality soon follows. 

 

 _Was this really what Hannibal had felt when he had killed the ‘rude?’_ Unless it’s absolutely necessary that the individuals caused him drastic measures, it could be financial, more than a simple inconvenience or his well-being. Cutting down unrequited love like the metastasized tissue. Nigel would’ve brought a closure on that particular individual’s life like a territorial tiger, in a one swift stroke upon the carotid, or a simple headshot, removing himself from the emotion splattering like ink blots, leaving in-erasable stains, but _**not like this**_ \- _not when the boy could feel every jab and twist of gleaming rotation and he had already inflicted enough with a tearing bullet, didn’t he return that symphony of quivering flesh and throbbing veins?_ They don’t have to get overly theatrical over this kind of killing. 

 

 ****Finding himself in stalemate as the light and dark within his tainted heart continues to weigh things upon the balance, yet the issue of their _non-surreptitious, fragile_ love is a grim one, which had entirely shaped them to be painfully different, yet starkly similar. Though they had mishaps, curveballs, having thrown into an inescapable abyss where they already seemed to have crossed the event horizon towards the black hole, they were stubborn as fuck. 

 

The concept of _home_ , their _mansion_ , where he sought to be forever reunited with his brother after nineteen years sounded so far and out of this tangible world as sleek fingers trace the shallow ridge of the barrel. An empty carapace of the fleeting life as the course gritty splinters of bones grind away in _infinitesimal_ , almost unnoticeable shards. Trevor’s head rolls backward, only supported by the chain and a bar stretching his arms in a wide V, along with his widened, dilated amber. They’re too reminiscent of the hue Nigel’s eyes had taken in his prime years before the green specks took hold of the light brown. Hannibal’s completely spellbound with the revolving motion of the serrated blade, _fine_ , _devastating_ , the thing he had held when operating on the live body when he had been an ER surgeon. 

 

While Hannibal is immersed in his task of creating another one of his masterpieces to be added in his arsenal, Nigel hems and haws over their past; he’s been there, already done that numerous times; renouncing and even repudiating Hannibal’s crimes in _denial_ and _betrayal_. Of course he does share the violent tendencies - if Hannibal played and mocked **God** , he was the **lone** **beast** brawling through until he’s dead in the water or better, to bite the dust. Nigel simply watches with breathless silence with straightened face, although within him grows a tumultuous thundercloud, so familiar as oxygen, blood, the life force of vigor coursing through his bloodstream like a potent drug. The young man’s bullet had pierced Hannibal’s shoulder, Nigel’s own had gone through and through, exiting back Trevor’s left side, just beneath the ribcage. A strange sense of forlorn ruefulness crosses briefly, as Nigel looks through his unkempt matted locks, cupping around the left side of his forehead. His own reflection briefly etches in blurred streaks, a broad stroke upon the dark pupils before the young man’s last breath slowly bates. Hannibal puts the circular saw down, along with the disc he had cut from the vertex of the skull. 

 

Nigel had witnessed it all, through seemingly and deceivingly indestructible layers of Hannibal’s human veil and within that lucid evil, lied a peculiar purity. The sliver of steady beating heart deteriorating like a slowly deflating balloon letting the air out. Through his lingering life on the verge of death, Nigel perceived his aloof, impassive twin spill forth - not only through the whoosh of blood along with thumping heart and slipping vigor of well-maintained physique, but the manifestation of his sentiment crumbling down. Hannibal had wordlessly passed him with a fleeting brush of his shoulder, yet Nigel could sniff out the permanent weave along his flayed heart. Not an alienated concept regarding his own sealed fate. It wasn’t a mere curiosity nor letting whatever he had been holding onto his rein to see where it would take him through the projected tracks Hannibal himself had constructed. Perhaps it was a genuine affection. Finally finding his equal in the midst of sounders.  

 

Yet, they were so different from each other, painfully deviating. Although they shared that same dualism swinging in continuous pendulum; all _chaos_ in the midst of _composure_ , there would be a stubborn layer of gap, widening further as Nigel diverts his gaze upon his brother, who looks over his shoulder. Hannibal’s fingers are already on the scalpel, which had been hidden beneath the usual place, _under the cuff of the sleeve_.

 

Nigel’s oxfords rub against the cemented floor as he pivots away, the blood drips against the web of his fingers as the lingering warmth from his fingertips suction away from his nerve endings. Still engrossed in thought, he mulls over his own experience with the flesh and blood. Ironically, with Hannibal, the flickering light had been put out and even a sliver of resounding humanity didn’t exist. Yet, Nigel found an unparalleled solitary, the enormity of his bubbling desire to find the likeminded being who he could guide through a proper metamorphoses. But not this kind. Not anymore, he would be subjugated to unnecessary spillage, then abandoning his executioner’s style. No more nightmares full of paroxysm and emaciated, desiccated entity governing his unconsciousness, either.  

 

“You’re gonna fucking destroy yourself doing this,” yet another road trip abruptly comes to closure as he has no desire nor inspiration to visit those uncharted places. “I’ll seek myself out, you continue what you’re fucking good at.” 


	37. Chapter 37

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another Time, Another Place || After Charlie Countryman Streaming ( Nigel x Gabi )

 

The stars hurtle across the vast inky sky and Nigel’s gleaming eyes match that of crescents rippling across the equally obsidian water, shining like lush silk beneath the Bucharest air. _No_ , it’s not the spark of excitement he had when he crashed at the hostel as a vagrant delinquent, wasting the prime of his years with drug possession and accusal of assaults and destructive behavior. 

He had come across Gabi for the first time when he had been drunk off his ass at the very balcony he had stayed in, throwing cartons of empty stale beer that tasted more like fucking piss. Amongst all the tit-cupped prostitutes and debauched jailbirds, there had been a _diamond_ amidst crude lumps of coal. His body mirroring the movement of splashing and gurgling over the rocks as he motored down the hall to chase the _first_ and the _only_ love of his fucking life. 

He didn’t plan to stay in this fucking wretched city on the brink of industrial demolition and a total reconstruction, yet, Gabriella Ibanescu’s aura and her free-spirited independence, only one of her multi-faceted diversity had completely entranced him from the get-go. She was ever the total package, the blue jay who refused to be confined within the slatted hold of skewed heroism.  

_Bound by spell, a tunnel-visioned stallion with both his ear to the ground. His fate had been sealed from there and then;_

_A star-crossed lover, with a desirous lief of his heart._

He hovers like a falcon, yearning to hold her in his arms and the thought of her consumes him entirely. If Gabi’s mellifluous serenade hadn’t been seeping colors into his pallor, as he laid upon his steel bed, an incapacitation that would last months as he had been buried beneath huge flakes drifting slowly down out of icy sky, the color of ash and dust, he would’ve had absconded the country a long time ago. 

He had gotten through Victor’s blackmailing, all the vehement oppressions of the rival gang, even an inside job within his club as some of his henchmen had been executed in his usual style, like the style he frequently opted when disposal of the bodies became most irksome endeavor. The very air he loathed and seeped too much into every expanse of his pore seem to serve as her flesh and lips, right beside him as his recurrent sleeplessness continued. 

It was the concept so far away from him, _the gentle strokes, brushes, raking fingers_ beneath his scruff ashen blonde as he lulls into much-deserved sleep. There he was, wishing he could stop breathing and perceiving too much.   

The pulley hoists Charlie up by an ankle and his whimpers drown out the endless, vehement deluge, pouring out like the pulsating incessant throb of his twisted heart. _**His**_ Gabi, beneath her jet-black eyeliners, his permeated presence is completely _absent_. The yearning desire, _sempiternal_ as always, now had been crumbled down to faded recollections, almost _vanished_ from her enchanting aura. 

 _ **She**_ was the _sun_ , the source of invigoration. 

 ** _He_** was the _looming thundercloud_ , the source of shelter and shade, etching sparks upon those who got too close to her. 

 _ **He**_ was the _moon_ , drifting away with her luscious accents and eloquence of poetic composition. 

 ** _He_** wishes he was a _star_ , as he disintegrates and a cessation of mortality plucks his quixotic devilry as he begins a wayfaring journey towards the bleak coldness of the outer space. 

If he could ever look back and see her gaze as she made a wish upon it. He slips into an oblivion, as the demons of his past and every counted breath transcends to become a trailing warmth of the shooting star, the last fleeting embers embracing with his still lingering fuel. 


	38. Chapter 38

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this in fifteen minutes while listening to M83's Intro (aka Charlie Countryman soundtrack - the music at the end) at a park near where I live. This was surprisingly relaxing and overly emotional.

##  **Hurtling Galaxies**

 

 _Thousands of galaxies_ collide upon   
as the green specks beneath the hazel vortex   
swims further away from the realm of _permuting breaths_  
 _starlights flaring_ , exploding every inch of you  
as I burn out too bright like a stick of dynamite   
to ever be looked at directly nor too close   
and lips _burn_ and _blister_ , with recollections of gunpowder past   
 _the exquisitely unsettling misfortune that would.._  
hurtle me into an endless stretch of milky way   
my whole body could slip through this _hypnotic oddities_  
never to reappear in this world again   
easily reduced into _stardust_ , _fragments of atoms_ and   
 _essential element of all things constitute this_  
 _ **fucking universe  
**_ I’ll be  _Orion_ and _Sagittarius_    
 _aiming for your heart,_ made of strength that holds   
my embodiment together   
I’ll be the _waltzing_ and _dazzling_ spark of high noon  
penetrating through your emerald cerulean   
deeper than rolling _Aegean_    
in the final moment of my life  
and you’re too alive to look into my _fanciful dream_  
too alive to be __**entirely human.**


	39. Chapter 39

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> AWOL || Nigel x Mischa
> 
> for @little-lady-lecter.

**_Time passes,_ **

Nigel watches a streak of rain patter across the closed windows as he imprisons himself behind the quiet silence. The rain turns into unbearable reins upon his heart, lashing around it with untouched steadiness, so unique to those like him, who had accustomed themselves to solitude. Woods begin to unfurl on either side of the road as he walks in his reverie. His drenched figure treading through the woods in torrential rain, his form is like that of a huge beast suppressing a roar. The road he walks gradually narrows, the lower appendages he drags, becomes more unbearable as his undulating form winds around the boundary. The rain grows even more heavier as the afternoon wears on, and darkness within his heart did so very swiftly as well. 

Those were the memories, with an alabaster fingers intertwined against his much larger, tanned and veined one. Mischa opens her umbrella but it doesn’t even reach his shoulder. He could hold the umbrella and straddle Mischa within his arms, yet, she merely exists in multitudes of shadows, intangible as his fingers pass through the ectoplasm. As the layers separate, he could hear the cacophonous shriek, a high-pitched scream of hers become more haunting and vicious. As if she had been reduced into the most raw and carnal idea he knows all too well. His bloodstream courses through with this sole emotion. A wicked anger as Mischa continues to be intransigent against his will, descending into malicious spirit that surrounds the gloomy miasma of the portent woods.  

These were the moments when there might have been nothing at all the matter, the moments that never failed to sink his heart down into an unexplored realm. Like wasps buzzing through his ears, he hears indistinguishable drone of his own baritone ringing to become more strident with Mischa’s distant screams. The drawl of his usual guttural sound reduced into charged, pained utterance.  

_I need you back, in this life more than the next._

 

**_Time passes,_ **

As small children, their young cheeks were constantly left peachy pink by the whipping Lithuanian winter and Mischa had provoked in Nigel a sense of responsibility and charge, which resembled even more than mere fraternal affection. His vigor required all of his energy to be expended in looking out for his younger sister, since they had a huge age gap. Still, there were moments when they had felt like strangers. Distant, unsettling. Mischa had been such a tiny child, smaller than the peers. 

As the barren, paint-chipped walls become the brimming foliage full of life with mere thought of her. In the Lecter castle, the birds are chirping, gentle breeze lifts the tail of his shirt and the crackling of dry leaves could be heard as they walk through the grounds. It offers the vagabond’s frugal bedding for the luxurious view, plucked right off from the postcard. With a forlorn face, behind a mask of composure, he is crumbling apart as the melancholy sets in. They were descending further into silence as affliction mark their young faces. The crackling fire pushes through Mischa’s tender face as Nigel watches in diabolical horror. His little fingers slashing through the imagined visualization, too vivid and execrable and unreal. 

He walks and enters through the tunnel. The obsidian darkness completely consume him though the outside remains dazzlingly bright. With the blackness saturated with dampness from his sweat, he pauses for a while and listens to the crack beneath his feet. The intermittent echo and his steady breath, yet steadily growing heavy by each heartbeat, becomes more of a burden as the relative silence manifests into a heavy mass of rock against his core. 

 

_**Time passes,** _

_Such intolerable loathing_ , dreams of murder and one who had been brutally murdered. Its hazy distinctions as boundaries wear thin. Wasn’t he a murderer in the name of morally skewed vigilante? Only the idea of bubbling fury and idea of violence remains vivid and fundamental enough to stick. The instantaneous sound, of a bullet striking into the victim’s head as the shadow of a soul plucks out of the lifeless body, strewn and collapsed, cold in the darkness as the gleaming orbs stare in emptiness. 

They come to him more and more, multiplying exponentially than he could ever count. They overlay with more nightmares. Violent acts perpetrated his night. As the spreading warmth intensifies, he becomes the _vessel_ for the flint, closing in the heat into the hearth to be detonated upon the ambiance. 

A continuous torrent of his own silent screams stream out. His limbs writhe, compelled by some unknown impulse. Longing, regret, wistfulness, yearning, desire. He looks as if he’s throwing himself towards Mischa, closer to his sister, without realizing that she isn’t there. His bleached arm, now faded with color and veins stick out like an ugly protrusion. 

_He will be spending a mobius’ strip of paradigm shifts, plummeting and plucking himself in and out of the poignancy of the past and present._


	40. Chapter 40

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Past experiences help shape who we are currently, how we see the world. Send in a symbol and I’ll write a drabble of one of my muse’s memories.
> 
> ♣ - a fading memory
> 
> tw; death, drug overdose, suicide

Contained within an empty shell of his former-glorious self, Nigel’s usually predatory, hazel irises glints with fierce consumption; both such a sure gauge he exerted upon the urge to **_intimidate_** and letting the opposition know just how much _unquenchable bloodlust_ spills over his fiery gaze. His motorcycle still stands warm merely a few feet from him as all of his fraying vaingloriousness contains within the streamlined carbon chrome. Heavy snowdrift, unperturbed but only with hot stream of blood trickling down from his side is painted across the pristine white crystals and reflects the celestial bodies over his head, too _incandescent_ and _extraordinarily dazzling._

 

He hadn’t seen his twin since his twenties. Of course, they have had such fleeting conversations over the phone. _Excruciatingly_ _courteous, banal and out of sheer necessity._ Already debauched and tainted with the life of the libertine, the twins were far from being the typical quintessential identical twins. He had seen those stereotypical ones that dressed same, acted same and the only friends that they had been were each other’s. Hannibal and him were utterly different, not one characteristic trait nor shared experiences had coalesced their _twisted metamorphoses of souls_. 

 

Already having corrupted by intemperance, _his club was his life_. _A dope-fiend, bouncer, bartender with a flair of violence and killings._ His rise to fame as a notorious criminal had been expected, as he had a penchant for exerting force and spatting out virulent words at any opposition. His eminence of committing myriads of transgressions and taking parts in unsanctioned smuggling of firearms and shipments of drugs, containers’ full of them coming straight from South America.

 

So self-assured about his accomplishments as he had failed to see the recusancy that had been rising, almost like a _rebellion_ from his henchmen who had been seen as _complicity_ to his own crimes. _**Never gullible**_ , but having forced to maintain the an audaciousness of the gang, he had been too intransigent to notice the animosity towards him. Either he had been revered or despised for his dauntless and staunch schemes.

 

Having rendered incapacitated by one of his associates, he jeopardized his own life to garner up all of his gatherings before the manner escalated to take the turn for the worst. Forced to abscond Romania as he fell flat on his face about the only evidence that would pin him for three counts of murder, his hazy gaze traverses across Hannibal Lecter’s front porch. The soft illumination lit from the fireplace, reminiscent of their Lithuanian home brings renewed spark of nostalgia as a dark figure emerges back from the large clearing; that must be the kitchen. 

 

 ****A distinctive _ram_ , as if he would ever make a perceivable dent upon the vehement door with his wrecked form. Hannibal’s starkly defined profile turns dramatically over Nigel’s slouched form, appearing smaller than his encompassing six feet. A scowl takes over his face before his knees buckle, the elements finally getting to him as his eyes droop. Chapped lips starts to bleed and crack as he sprawls over the lounge.

 

~~

 

A man stands outside the porch with a grim face and Nigel plucks himself off from the lounge. The mansion had been long suffocated by endless multitudes of freshly formed smoke, coalescing with stale nicotine and strewn bone-dry whiskey bottles. His bloodshot eyes glare towards the door like a ravenously starved lion and he moves like one. Purposeful, yet there’s certain off-putting about it as well. His trembling hand welcomes the inevitable. 

 

The man who would send Nigel’s hands _tremble_ and _suffocate_ him in eternal sorrow, as the _jagged memory_ of the dramatic encounter sheds layer upon layer. That lump of enmeshed emotion slowly having disintegrated as endless supply of drug that continues to stick upon his insides. A continuous column of fire pushing the lump out of his body. He hopes everything is a nightmare, but a moment after, he’s holding an alabaster ceramic jar, full of stardust and carbon, shared by their bloodstream, now reduced into a scattering remnants of dust. 

 

_**Nobody can help him, nobody can save him and nobody can make him breathe.** _

 

When he eventually succeeds in falling asleep, he’s thrusting a knife into someone’s stomach with all his strength, then reaches back into the wound and wrenches out long, coiled-up intestines. Like gutted fish, all the squishy flesh and muscle are ripped and torn off. Through the pitch-black darkness, sinister crimson puddle aglow beneath the faint glow of the dimly lit atmosphere as broken shards, clumps of ash, his own vivid red bloodstains merge into an unforgettable landscape. 


	41. Chapter 41

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Past experiences help shape who we are currently, how we see the world. Send in a symbol and I’ll write a drabble of one of my muse’s memories.
> 
> ✂ - a vivid memory
> 
> ( Verse Unknown )

Another mundane day at his establishment, the discharging process at  _Floreasca Clinical Emergency Hospital_ is a swift one. His belongings only consists of a worn, sagging shoulder bag full of day-worn garments, mostly monochromatic, a slightly crinkled Versace suit and his usual appurtenance of a revolver, a flask full of whiskey he hadn’t touched a bit, a crumpled pack of cigarettes and a zappo lighter. Still under the onslaught of throbbing involuntary contractions, his _jagged, gnarled_ flesh that mar his tight abdomen through just underneath his armpit stands out underneath a paper-thin threadbare shirt, along with the bulging bandages. They constrict and feels more like a  ** _suffocating contraption_** as his muscles flutter beneath with his steady, yet slightly elevated heartbeat. His own corporeality had felt strangely foreign up until now, as he gradually becomes more _attune_ with it - it had felt like the astral body had been expectantly commanding him as his atrophied muscles screamed in agony after a long hibernation.

 

Darko’s already present with his sun-tinted Jaguar, along with Nigel’s own Ducati perched right next to it; a stark red and black monstrosity of a crotch rocket. His lifelong associate and partner always had an ear to the ground regarding Nigel’s well-being (and spectacularly unfortunate mishap). Nigel gives a long stare to Darko, then it turns into a sidelong gaze as the other inspects the wound as if a falcon would of an imminent meal, Nigel’s lashes flutter as he looks through a dazzling stream of light reflected against the chrome body and against his pupils. It becomes too overwhelming in the midst of early spring as the enigmatic looking gaze lands on the burner phone and Nigel’s bike keys propped against Darko’s palm. There still is some form of annoyance present as too-familiar sensation licks all over his spine - his diaphragm expanding against the cage in erratic manner as the looming silence briefly lasts. Like a set of predators’ sizing each other up in their usual ways. Pensive and intense, they are the _**dynamic duo**_ and _sovereignty_ upon Bucharest nightlife. 

 

After a few strictly professional exchanges, both Darko and Nigel knows the latter abhors to show weakness and the former’s last resort was to lose the most rakish and volatile charmer who had _no in-betweens_ when it came to getting business done. The ‘ _fucking huge favor_ ’ had been simple enough; with the recent exhibition’s opening taking tonight, the attention would be diverged and it would be easy to detect the Czech man dressed to the nines in a stream of alike people, in their suits and dazzling array of flamboyant dresses. _Get the next shipment’s location from the man and use the burner phone to contact him when midnight nears._

 

Soon, the time approaches and Nigel’s also clad in his dark charcoal Versace, not an inch of fabric parted upon his slender form as the bike breaths hot roars beneath his thighs. Making through the stream of incongruous faces of high socialites, his attire blends easily along the alighted chandeliers of surroundings. Bucharest had dubbed itself ‘ _Little Paris,_ ’ but to him, it wasn’t nothing more than a mishmash of historical styles, _**a hapless pastiche**_ without a coherent concept. Feeling more alienated as a orange blaze sweeps through the columns and ridges of the well-preserved architecture, he hopes to make a swift getaway along the ebb and flow of crowds.

 

All the intricacies of ornate golden gilded frames and the macabre images of _ **Vanitas**_ ; all the _emptiness_ associated with _worthless nature of materialistic debauchery that ends up to be burning candle at both ends_ , he had been an embodiment of that philosophy which many deemed covetous and wicked. The stark contrast of the dulled umber and earth tones that accompany the morbidity and extremeness doesn’t put a single infinitesimal dent against his flesh, containing more scar tissue than the tide of crowds surging into the grand hall of the museum faster than angry hornets defending their hives with their life.

 

With his professionalism, building walls and constructing them had been faster than how he does with feelings. Moving in _fluid motion,_ the onslaught of different perfumes and colognes assault his heightened olfactory as he slithers through. Endless flow of champagnes and congratulatory remarks upon the artist just before the reception begins. The cloying fragrance of flower bouquets and faint scent of fresh layer of paint, accentuated by the spotlights highlighting the main piece, which is a striking hyper-realistic accumulation of all things brevity and ephemeral nature of earthly life, contained within a massive-size canvas, the length almost as tall as an extension of his arm-span.

 

 _Like he gives a fucking shit._ Not even glancing around the slanting light which begins to divert onto the mini-stage, his attention is fully shifted upon the adjacent room where more acquainting continues with a smaller decibel. The Czech man, also dapper in his black pinstripe suit with his hair impeccably pressed off to the side, slips a note, the thin and elegant cursive full of encrypted code written in Romanian visible just as Nigel merely passes him by. _Appreciative remarks later, the fucking business first._


	42. Chapter 42

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Past experiences help shape who we are currently, how we see the world. Send in a symbol and I’ll write a drabble of one of my muse’s memories.
> 
> ✖ - a repressed memory
> 
> ( Nigel x Gabi, then Lecter Twins ) V; Post-Canon where Nigel doesn't die.

If there had been a functional software that could ever obliterate three tumultuous years of his too dramatic life, he would wipe out the memories of his _divorcee_. Having preferred the swift gratification of the ephemerality and corporeality over the genuine commitment of his emotions, Gabi had completely changed his life around. Falling head over heels and the shared experiences growing to be more tangible than what he had anticipated, His life had been obscured by _quixotic_ , _romantic_ affections towards his _total package_ , who had filled his life in both his **zenith** and **nadir**. 

 

He doesn’t even have to get pensive nor try to conjure up the strikingly vivid atmosphere of his dank flat, _muggy_ and _revolting_ with putrid scent of bodily fluids and his own agonizing endless requiem of groans, and loathes toward himself for making such an uncharacteristic whimpers breaking out as angry red permeated through the diagonal, eviscerated laceration. Sinking into the _solidified sheets_ beneath him, he continues to bathe in _crimson spectacle_ , as sunbeam streams her face and torso as he heaves a strained sigh. Every sensation seems to turn onslaught, his growling stomach grows ravenous, yet he has absolute zero appetite. 

 

Perhaps this had been what his _**former associate**_ , one of his most trusted entourages in the club had intended. Not a swift kill, that would be so effortless and rendered useless. He had faced a particularly sneaky posse who intended to expose his crimes, but in contrary to how those law enforcement officers believed Nigel to be, a _violent savage_ whose uncontrollable bloodthirstiness had a history of biting the bullet. Like an eagle looking over the vast woods in an aerial view, his suffocating forcible-ness extended beyond the grounds of the club.

 

Descending into love as Gabi’s bow glided across the cello, way too big for her petite frame. The cafe’s ambiance always bustled with generous crowds of people. His flat a few floors up seemed utterly detached as it reeked _death_ and _abomination_ as his incapacitated figure, his opposite leg bent over, pallid face drained of its sun-kissed and healthily glowing facade tremble as thick eyelashes flutter. Corners of his almond-shaped, deep-set eyes crease as excruciating pain surges downward. Irreparably soiled sheets bunched up by the foot of his metal-framed bed, creaking under his weight as his broad and slender form encompasses too compact against the twin-sized bed. Afflicted by _kindling anger,_ blazing through his body as he relives the cold blade guts him like a helpless fish flapping desperately against the riverbank, gills gradually slowing down as diaphanous orbs become muddy.

 

Forced out from his demesne and desultory movements all he could make to sustain himself, Gabi’s original compositions are what keeps his battery recharged. Serving as a _**serenade**_ upon his entrance towards _the gates of limbo._ Notes serving as _assuaging elixir._ If there ever had been an old chestnut, more like someone’s figment of imagination, this recollection would fulfill the criteria. Hopelessly falling in love in the first sight when he had been recuperated enough to stagger downstairs for his favorite Romanian meatball soup and strong and bitter coffee he craved so much along with his pack of cigarettes. Each breath a statement of how _debilitating_ several months it had been, the renewed appreciation for life and his plodding perseverance fuels further.

 

Never aesthetically caring for and self-indulgent as his love had quickly faded as it came, turning _ethereal_ as their evanescent love comes to a _**denouement**_ along with Nigel’s typical _relentlessness_ and _possessiveness_ , headstrong to stretch out what is inevitable. Now all he had for that runaway couple had been sheer contempt. Especially antipathy towards that fucking runty cunt Charlie, how dare he seduce once who had been his healer, what he solely consider her as. Not a wife in widely accepted sense, but someone who had been sent to look after him, sort of like a guardian angel he didn’t have in his childhood years.

 

Languid, but still smoldering with unrestrained emotion shooting upward to meet Hannibal’s gaze, he doesn’t have to be reminded of those days as he follows and ascends those stairs, his oxfords toed off before he takes the step. _How his emotions had taken a roller-coaster as that fateful day at the cafe._ With Gabi’s phone number and address clutched inside his palm, his hold against Hannibal’s softer and warm one tightens, giving a firm squeeze. As his view frees from the labyrinthine of his past, he has _a new life_ to look forward to. 

 

He would recover from both physical and emotional damage, deal with both a _child_ and a _demon_ residing inside him as a body of late forties still struggles to live a responsible and less destructive way. Instead of dulcet of comfort foods which he had intentionally avoided and felicity of their palace along with his sister, Hannibal’s grand mansion is more evocative of Byzantine churches, the grandeur and earthy tones more severe and stern, closing towards him as if walls are moving. His new habitat and what would transform to be a sanctuary, away from his wretched memories of _**too. much. fucking. love.**_


	43. Chapter 43

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From the meme; 13 Horror Movie AU’s
> 
> All of these AU’s/plots are based (sometimes roughly) on plots of horror films both new and old. Choose one from the list or send !!! for a randomly generated one.
> 
> The Amityville Horror – while strange things are happening in our muses’ home, one of them starts to behave aggressively towards the other.

_Dark woods, no people,_ only multitudes of indistinguishable shadows slanting across the dampened earth as the sharp-pointed leaves on the trees rustle with such premonitory whistle. Nigel’s torn barefoot traipses through the frozen ravine as each step cuts deeper into his soles. By this time, his nerves are starting to be numbed, so minus the faint smear of red he leaves like Hansel and Gretel, everything becomes all the same. Whirling snowdrift, an occasional howls of wolves in the distance. 

 

Everything is reminiscent of _barren_ and _desolate_ Lithuanian landscape during the height of winter. A red barn-like building glows like a distant ember as he squints his eyes. Eyelashes turn icicles as every perceivable thing registers through his brain in a slowed pace and he feels like sinking, plummeting into a deep oblivion as the landscape splits into numerous decalcomanies, becoming even more muddled within a haze. A gentle reverberation wrecks through his appendages as his flesh grows red like a _great blood_. Wind akin to lashing whip grows even more merciless upon his sharply protruding cheekbones, and he feels blood in his mouth. Blood-soaked clothes sucks onto his bristled skin, goosebumps blooming faster as ashen blonde locks wildly flutter along the vortexing snowstorm. 

Huddling his form together to keep his quickly escaping warmth as he crosses both of his arms, he begins his sprinting and finds his legs stubbornly resisting his utmost command. As if his flaring nerves had been already severed along the spinal cord as he summons the tenacious cling of his willpower, combined with residual strength beneath his core. Like a stub of a candle desperate to illuminate through the obsidian darkness, he pushes through, through the valley and then suddenly the woods open out. The springtime’s effervescent light spills forth through the dense greenery and he sees a family picnicking under a vehement tree, children running about. That delicious aroma itches through his nostrils and the scene is almost painfully vivid. The _babbling stream_ , the melted snow as transparent as he looks through his soul. 

 

He blinks, the electronic clock strikes **three fifteen am** and his clothes are stained with varying degree of crimson, the crumpled fabric had already hardened in some places, flecks of dried blood falls like ruby crystals. His hands are slick with fresh blood, the deep scarlet looks blacker than the obsidian night, settling deeper than unusually silent night. Something brushes by him, and his skin is marred by deep contusion and he hisses through clenched and chattering teeth, with the look of his eyes containing undoubtful fear; _of something unknown and unregistrable_. What it used to be so amiable now turns **treacherous**. With strange, horrible and uncanny feeling surrounding his aura, he persists and carries on. 

 

 ****He’s the master of his own fate and soul and no one else would dare to seep into that reserved abyss of the darkness, shared only by blood and womb that Mischa and he have shared once. The phantasm of vanished memories and recollections shared and mended by one. With each step, the _penetrative_ , _transfixed_ red eyes, its intensity grows even more _powerful_ and _piercing_ than a set of laser, shoots to meet Nigel’s heart as the ground blossoms with blood. **Drip-drip-drip.** Sticking his finger as he feels the sudden burst of heavy metallic scent through the column of his throat. He spats out a mouthful and through the second heap of coagulated blood, he detects something glittering out from the spectacle of textures. 

 

Through the _ravaged battlegrounds_ , the scraps gathered around to form a continuous film of yellowed and faded memories. Of them less tainted by traumas and tragic conjuncture. None would see him in complete pieces, through the most hidden traits of all and repressed fears; _of loss, indifference._ Yet, with each threading pain continually weaving through his veins and each fiber of his muscles, he watches the family of five collapse and twistedly _metamorphose_ into a **surging dark mountain of blood,** its sinister red eyes still glowing with undying intensity behind the watery discharge. 

 

The passing seconds span like an eternity, the red stain that would recurrently take over as he bled from inside out, the _fizzing bubbles_ manifest into a **splattering trail of comets** , capable of causing enough force to ravage him. Helplessly watching their transformation as an indistinguishable and undefinable sound becomes more cacophonous, the closest thing he could describe is the sound of radio not attuned to its correct frequency. Even more so than the firing synapses of the drugs as he futilely tried to find his footing through the dense obscurity of tar-like sinkhole, a concoction of his very own mind. A steady flow engulfing his chest, it would resemble his own incapacitating wound, his own ravaged defence failing to coagulate and prevent from other infections to prod at his crumbling pensive.

Then he hears the unmistakable tick of the large hand of the clock and his eyes _snap open_. The time reads; **three fifteen am.**

 

His hands are bound in front of his chest and his mouth is bound and he watches Mischa’s reddened, devilish pair of eyes, empty, demonic, diabolic, devoid of anything and everything he knows about her. Like someone taking over her consciousness as she merely becomes the limp, ragged doll beneath an entity’s control. Widened hazel petrifies against her petite, too porcelain white form. As if her blood had been already _harvested_ and _drained_. 

 

_This is not real, this is mere a hazy distinctions as he succumbs into a deep oblivion. He’ll just bite his tongue, scream and wake up from this fucking nightmare._

 

Yet, there’s a striking familiarity as he knows that gaze, Mischa’s very own beneath all the impenetrable gleam of pitiless obscurity. The elasticity of the instant when he knows his determined fate. The metal severing through his artery as the consciousness crumbles and falls cold in the darkness. Violent acts threaded with more violence, perpetrated by the horror as his boggled mind swims in more aggravated haziness. 

 

That shuddering, gruesome feeling overwhelms as the fingers connect through the crook of his neck. His adam’s apple slowly retracts beneath his strained neck muscles as lips ajar. Everything now feels so unfamiliar as the door gradually shuts for eternity. Maybe he’s coming face-to-face with something that had always been there. _That amity towards humanity they so despised._

 

 _ **It’s dark,**_ everything having been snuffed out as he stands in the rubble of their aftermath in the pitch-black darkness. And he faces his waking hour, and his bright, tormented eyes squeezes the brightness out as he lingers in the darkness where he could still perceive Mischa’s presence. 

 

The light gradually shut, _sempiternally_. He’s residing there in the impenetrable labyrinth of dark veils, staggering with his ravaged form and like **a lost child.**


	44. Chapter 44

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BREAK MY CHARACTER’S HEART WITH ONE ASK BOX MESSAGE: your brother is dead.
> 
> An anonymous' request.

## A Twisted Metamorphosis || Lecter Twins

His eardrums ring with _countless_ reverberations of gongs going off, turning strident along with his _racing heart_. Millions of fire ants crawl down the column of his throat, both _suffocating_ and _swelling_ all the other sensations around him. Drowning within the bleak darkness and equal dreary whirl of snowdrift fossilizing him in an invisible mold, continuing to entrap him into the emitted words. _Hannibal is **dead**. Dead-dead-dead. _

 

He feels immobile, locked in a block of ice as the chill of despair crawls along the length of his spine, locking him in a succession of flaring shiver and paroxysms marching up to conquer his limbs and bound them in mid-air. 

 

More than his recurrent disappearances in his _reverie_ , he solely blames himself for not preventing his twin from taking the fall for **his** _crime_. For not letting that clutch tighten around Hannibal when he lost his shit against one of the esteemed psychiatrist’s _prized_ patient. He could feel every chord on his neck stand up and vibrate with brewing tension, as bile _inadvertently_ rises up. Especially around his wrists and the curve of his neck, he could feel the strained flesh throb with outward distress. Coppery skin scalds with brewing heat, surging like a dark mountain ready to consume it all. That familiar sensation of  **unexplainable** surge of emotions which manifest into scalding embers behind his hazel. _I would’ve never fucking let you go, you were in my grasp, I was too wrapped up, ensorcelled even._ It was **desolation** , **disbelief** , **ruefulness** , the English vocabulary lacked the means to define this _enigmatic conundrum_. Most likely, it had been _self-annihilation._  

 

A profuse _longing_ , as his figure limps further with weaving torpidity. It takes extraneous effort to lift his appendages, register the news upon the gray matter of his brain and process it like he would use to. Such **unfamiliarity** turns into the hazy overlapping haloes ripple across the _unreality_ of it all, as his dilated hazel, overly blown with etched crimson spreading faster than fungi gazes and struggles to focus. The built-up grime hindering his sight to register the form to materialize into a **tangible corporeality**. 

The _splitting and obscured_ images of him, the view of Hannibal marred by endless sparks traversing through his chords and veins, that would have taken a hold of every cell as the mortality ceases. Maroon orbs penetrate through the thick partition and Nigel scents his brother’s distinctive scent for the last time. A hint of _clove_ and _sandalwood_ , with a hint of _orange peel_ ; a fleeting hint of **citrusy sweetness** in the middle of his execution. Hannibal’s pleading eyes tell the death is not the end for the twins, as a thrilling energy seem to flow out quietly as he remains his _impeccable_ composure. From some unknowable place inside his body and accumulates on the center of his intense gleaming **color,** but the tremulous quivering is imperceptibly present; they’re locked within the _snapshot_ , **candid** , **raw** moments of pure love and affection. 

 

They’re what Hannibal thinks of as he falls into an eternal slumber. They’re what they’ll always remember as halves grow into eights, into thousands of severed connections continues to warp Hannibal’s perception. As he gazes into undulating _mirage_ of his younger brother, the only sensation that he is aware, painfully striking against everything else which mars the sense of gravity is his own fingers clutching onto the handle of the executioner’s chair with a vice grip, enough to dig his **talon-like fingers** and break the curve of the steel even when he’s addled with coursing drug. 

 

The divine dulcet flavor notes had already degraded into _rotting putridness_ inside him, **desolate** and **muggy** , with withered petals and clumps of vines manifesting into lodged lumps in his throat. An _invisible shackle_ placed around Hannibal’s ankles as his spine tingles with tenseness, the petrification becomes too burdensome and weighty for him to be liberated from. _Are you real or an apparition from my reverie?_

 

The continuous flow of scalding fluid continues to pour inside the vessel that holds the essence of Hannibal’s most treasured emotions, as their safeguarded bundle of **unadulterated** recollections buried deep within the den of his subconsciousness brims more to the rippling surface. All the others would _disintegrate_ and he wouldn’t even sing a requiem for them as his persevering heart finally clutches with a **vice-grip** among his throbbing veins.

 

The visceral and shocking image vanishes as they had been tainted repeatedly enough with Nigel’s own salty scalding tears that have etched through skin, motoring tremor acting as a catalyst for his **percolated explosion**. No amount of blazing aura would abate, as he would suffocate in his incapability and letting the snapshots repeat itself like a _rewound video_. With the settled _admittance_ , his own hold becomes that of an anchor, the energy which had completely depleted now _brews_ and _bubbles_ over as abstract shapes, both _beating_ and _caressing_ the jagged rocks along the eroding cliff. _No matter how others perceived him as, a relentless and vehement blazing trail of wildfire no one dared to step against,_ he would be exactly that. Carrying on the unfinished work his brother had carefully constructed. A god upon the mortals. 

 

Even when the surface appeared to be safe to walk on, **the calamitous grip** could burn through them, with arsenic-like furor coursing through every one of pores until the brash individual reduces as _scattered stardust._


	45. Chapter 45

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Break Nigel's heart: "I'm sorry, sir. Despite our best efforts, she succumbed to hypothermia just last night. Her body temperature was too low for us to save her in time."

##  **Ab Aeterno || Nigel x Mischa**

**{ In Latin, literally, “from the everlasting”, “from eternity”, and “from outside of time” }  
**

 

The saying was supposed to come true, _a **smile** is a curve that sets everything straight._  When he finally was able to infiltrate through the vehement grounds of the estate, the confines reeked of stale blood and a **cacophonous** remix of boars and pigs scattering about; despicable grunts of their insatiable viciousness and voraciousness towards the human flesh and blood and sights of ravaged limbs and viscera become an embodiment of the **gates of hell.**  The impenetrable adamantite bars inflaming with inextinguishable translucent whirling dance of incinerating fire. Within that sempiternal wall full of wicked souls and damned demons, he could already feel his own strands of soul plucked out; as pleasant memories become **nonexistent**. Those preexisting ones marred by unanswered questions. He stinks of sweat and newly spillage of blood; his own, along with wretched scent of brain matter and fluids. Excretion and piss. He would’ve have accepted it greedily, plummet further into the absence of humanity and human condition. **Wild beastly savagery** upon the land of composed. As if he couldn’t ever fucking register the dualism of his own existence. 

 

 _More like a smirk is the cure of everything askewed._ The lurking abhorrence, Mischa’s captivity had been marked by barbarous conditions, psychological abuse and little to no news of outside events. When survivability became jeopardized, there’s only a few restricted activities one can engage in. Mason’s miscreant behavior had reduced Mischa to an empty vessel with sunken eyes, as many iniquities suffered by him was present and he wouldn’t fully acknowledge ever. Unless he joins the agonizingly long journey towards her in a fantastical realm where every rusted memory would resurface and gleam the vast sky in its dazzling sparkness. 

 

The putrid stench seems to have soaked into his skin as the grip upon his revolver tighten. With a frown, he hopes to splash the cold water over his face, wanting to pluck himself off from this horrid nightmare. A **twisted poetic realm** with a _voodoo curse_ upon his body. Mischa’s unconscious form tremors with such atrocity marred upon her alabaster flesh and what used to be such luscious ripple of blonde. 

 

Like all people on the earth do, he has one of those irreplaceable individuals, those hard to define ones; it could be one’s nemesis or a deceiver, yet they’re the ones he always goes back to. Parts of his soul are forever permanently threaded with Mischa, no matter how many times they have reunited and parted their ways, unknowingly and abruptly.  _Understanding_ , the concept of it had been one of the words he **obstinately** steered away from; all the recollections and the persistence of those strands that would turn into whips. thorns, vines wrapping around the vessel made of luscious layers of silk. With a gossamer-like brush of his lips, he presses a kiss on Mischa’s forehead. The act itself serves as an immediate negation of the cruelty presented upon them through the _antidote_ of her presence, scents and fragile touch, as if his own **corporality** would whirl away as he **disintegrates**.  

 

Pendulous hazel erupts with unchecked emotions and he lets the word sink in. His own had prevailed through loath and fulmination towards the already dead  **sycophant** of their unfortunate misery. Mischa’s hapless demise would serve to be his most _fatal Achilles’ heel_. Without her, no home would be regarded as a model home, his life a model life; all the splendor and she along within it. Everything seems to be built upon a shifting quagmire as he sinks, suffocates and asphyxiates. _He can’t fucking breathe_. 

 

Her thickening absence both traumatizes and makes him a prisoner within savage torpor than ever. It is fucking _inexpressible_ and _exhaustive_. The earth will continue to spin, the flowers will continue to grow, yet his recumbent body would halt its growth. He pauses, through his slipping into narcoma, their soft voices seem to merge one after another. Like a lotus blooming in the midst of the most filthy backdrop, the _purity_ and _rebirth_ within her would be most beautiful.

 

Remaining quiet, as the passing thought courses through and unspoken words seem to roll beneath his tongue. **The Fucking Verger** , the name burn through his tissues, more so than the _admission of love_ and the imprints of his hands on her pallid cheeks, drained of life and color, _soulless_. There was something about the way he said the name too; there had been frozen fear, as his body still quivered like a leaf, but beneath his rolling tongue, it had been  _wickedly_ and  _strangely_ comforting as well. That made him to want to be her **indestructible** _anchor_ , the last unbreakable lifeline that she could clutch to even when he’s in the midst of **ending** his own. 

 

If the Vergers had given each of them a sense of false security and ephemeral comfort within each other, he would remove those parasitic viruses and reside in her body like white cells, serving as a imminent defense with aegis of his body. Her prodigious white knight forever.

 

The sunlight floods in at the open lattice and when the nurses make their morning rotation to check upon heartbroken brother of a recently deceased young woman. They run into **two** bodies; through the _perennial_ mingling fragrance of them, their colors _coalesce_ in the midst of snowdrift. The paean of winter as they hurry along to join their brother in **inseparable union.**

 

_Long live the Lecters._


	46. Chapter 46

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My answer to an anon's question, "what's Nigel's reaction when Hannibal's finally incarcerated?"

The other vehicles and trees reduce into merely a **series of blur** as the view becomes indistinguishable paint strokes. Their velocity faster than the speed of starlight, incandescent as edges mingle and into oscitant stretch. The drive back to Baltimore is three hours of nothing, but a vivid figment of his imagination unfolding as he concocts how they’re going to spend well-deserved  _three-day weekend_ in bed; simply enjoying his brother’s company and making up for all the lost time. Even with his exhaustiveness etched through the bloodshot eyes and sunken flesh with a widened bag beneath his hazel, the crotch rocket zips through the rush hour traffic with unmatched fervor. Having landed only half an hour ago in JFK International Airport from a grueling fifteen-hour flight from Amsterdam Schiphol, the caducous effect of **cheap booze** and the **ephemeral thrill** of the slain life beneath his fingertips, it still captures beneath his beating nerves, aggravated by dwelling energy beneath his veins. 

 

The very essence of him grows **effervescent** ; never deciduous as it’s not only his outwardly form which seems to disregard his _longest_ _absence_. It’s less perilous to love than the terrible scorching trial of **incessant proximity.** That’s why he can’t just fall in love with outwardly beauty of their shared resemblance; they are more than capable to lust after it, be infatuated by it, want to _own_ it. With a journeyman of his driving, he’s an epitome of a consummate showman. The flaring rush swells in the very core of him as the distant mansion nears. 

 

With a big grin tugging his cheeks, he opens the door and immediately senses something _off_. The quirk dissipating into a straighten, grim line as Nigel’s almond hazel narrows into two slits. Hannibal always keeps the front door locked and it had been open merely an inch or two even before he pulls his own from the ignition as the keys jangles within his grasp. More **suspicions** creeps up as he heads towards the kitchen as he follows the dried flecks of blood, questioning as he tilts his head. Like a stalking predator, a heat flares beneath his epidermal as he takes an audible, deep inhale. His olfactory sense catching up a faint iron-rich crimson, increasing by a shade. A smear of blood, indicative of struggle as he finds a _handprint_ smeared against the floor near the entrance of the kitchen. 

 

The dust-and soot-covered oxfords stride across the kitchen to find what was supposed to be a succulent roast already gone spoiled inside the oven, emitting a putrid smell. **Hannibal’s cell** on the island, his sent message unchecked. He was sure his brother had been here in the morning, the visible evidence still there in the form of a _lingering_ scent. The half-full coffee mug still warm against his palms and half-eaten egg, sunny side up as usual, still sits on the plate along with faint drop of blood tainting the yolk. He doesn’t have to be a _detective_ to register that the scene just took moments before his arrival and a surge of uncharacteristic regret surfaces through the marching bristled skin. His face growing crimson as his fingers curl around the metal counter, knuckles turning white as he rounds the corner with Hannibal’s cell in his hand. Then, he steps on a drop of crimson and almost slips, barely balancing himself to stand as his legs stretch further. It could be his brother’s or perpetrator’s who had apprehended Hannibal. _Fucking shit. Hannibal would’ve have put up a good fight and would’ve have succumbed to numbers._

 

A few days after, his exhaustiveness transforms into a residual energy as he grows more _restless_ and _agitated_ , and as he rummages through Hannibal’s study and the rest of the house for more evidence, desperately trying to find some kind of clue to figure out where his brother could be. With all of his resources at his disposal, his informants, associates over in the States and even in Europe as he wasn’t sure and clients spread all over east coast. _Was he abducted somewhere or simply expected his trip to lengthen further and sought his own respite?_  But then, Hannibal wouldn’t ever not announce his plans as they had planned a kill together within a few days when his brother planned to regain his appetite back. 

 

His addled mind finally comes **face-to-face** with the front of the locked gate to the basement and finds the hidden key beneath the hidden latch beneath the floor. Usually, Hannibal would’ve kept the _clandestine_ dungeon with his usual impeccable cleanliness, yet he could literally sense police’s presence upon as the racks had been emptied, the back room with the fridge swept clean as well. When he’s just about to dramatically pivot away from the seeping pitch-black darkness to start up the stairs, the vibrating burner phone rattles his hazy consciousness. With no means to check internet access, he would’ve not known the fact that none of his speculations held true. 

 

“Nigel, your brother’s behind the bars,  _Baltimore Hospital for the Criminally Insane_ , pleaded insanity.” Hannibal’s lawyer, surprisingly had talked to him for his secretive number. Nigel could visualize his throat click with both succor and acerbic bile. 

 

Meeting up with him to find more about Hannibal’s whereabouts, he spends time shooting at the range and practicing his knife-throwing at home. All the empty beer cans would do nicely to steep his marksmanship to another notch while his scheme to usurp the high-security prison takes a visualization through his beguilingly orotund voice within his head. 

 

Spending sleepless night as he spends browsing on a borrowed iPad, at 3am in the morning when he is about to nod off, he gets a phone call from one of his associates who had gave it a go on Nigel’s scheme. He had seen two policemen apprehend his brother, who had seen his better days and restrained from the big SUV police van about two weeks ago. His face scowling, The veins on his forehead and the curve of his neck throb as he furrows in displease.

 

With his excellently articulated plan at large and along with his phraseology, Nigel’s gleaming hazel sparkles beneath his charcoal balaclava. Immediately grabbing his cache of weapons, few pocket knives, his trusty gold-capped handgun in check as he swiftly checks the caliber .54 bullets in the cylinder, a backup revolver with two cartlidges, he speaks through the portable talker on his wrist. “Get the hacker to render the central system useless, then me and the other two can breach through the front, two groups of three could break through the flank. Take out all the fucking security guards.” His brows pinch as he stands afar from the entrance, the impressive architecture in the distance with two guards at the door with their weapons poised. Slipping the silencer on one of the backup revolvers that he carries, eyes diverting to take in the expanse of stretched grounds, he makes out a couple of more silhouettes moving about behind the steel gates.


	47. Chapter 47

Fingertips etch chiseled words in **tombstone** , manifesting into written scripture on the _epitaph_ as the remnants of aged and yellowed photo becomes staining soot against his fingertips. As _potent_ and _tenacious_ as the blood upon his hands. Don’t hurt people hurt people? Just like his brother had even when Mischa’s killers had been wiped out of the earth like bunch of swatted bugs, the pain pattern gets passed on. Through the **Lecter blood**. He wasn’t going to break the obstinate chain today and here he was, meeting  _unjust_   _churlishness_ with a _fervent furor_ ; like an aura of magic that spreads without any means of prevention. 

 

He’s doubling over with pain, _aggravated_ by the sensation of **life**. An overwhelming regret and rueful bitterness. The lingering fury though he had engraved the assailant’s demise down to the curve of his brain. With each breath, a trickle of crimson flows down the curve of his exposed abdomen, down to his leather-like denim. His revolver shoved down his side in an attempt to keep his posture up and it’s futile. 

 

He had witnessed a girl named **Mirela**. His club had myriads of prostitutes, both seasoned and novice. She wasn’t going to be any of those girls. He had sought to that. This girl in her late teens had painful semblance to **Mischa** \- if she had survived the atrocity and grown up, she would be the quintessential manifestation of this flawless _hallucination_ finally becoming a tangible reality and it had for him. With two unfathomable starlight eyes along with luscious blonde hair and alabaster skin aglow with unblemished body, she _embodied_ her so fucking much it hurt. 

 

The commotion barely had lasted several minutes; **no** , it wasn’t one of those out-of-the-movie, carefully choreographed and meticulously constructed action scene. It ended with a bang and when his form had hurtled through endless dim lights and splintered, fragmented shards of cement and glass, everything was already over in a cascading waterfall of crimson spectacle and sinister puddle beneath the pertinent moonbeam spilling over the gruesome scenery. Fighting over the thick haze as his frantic hazel had sought her, he’s haunted by the memory of her body right next to his. He had only vaguely felt her arm pulling him closer, her frantic breaths against the back of his neck as he had tugged her if his body had been bulletproof. The way their legs always ended up tangled and intertwined against each other’s as if they were waltzing. 

 

As if he had finally found that missing puzzle, his supposed charge - It may be a projection, or a romantic gesture to prevent her from meeting the untimely ticking time bomb. So he had relinquished all of his control as he watched her take the last breath. A strained one through the bubbling crimson pouring over the curve of her neck and cheeks as he wept into her bosom. None of the music, tranquility of the ocean and celestial bodies would heal him tonight. 

 

Hopefully, he doesn’t have to depict a _brutal detail_ of the assailant’s death. Kneecaps blown off, his arms severed off the torso in the most crude manner as he had bathed in the scalding warmth, matching his turmoil wildfire. He had gouged his cerulean eyes off, deceptively immaculate and innocent-looking as his soles had stomped on them as the man spilled a waterfall of saliva upon the gag. Then, when the colors of his skin drained and he could hear the distinctive choking sound from the strained throat, then he had blown his fucking head off in a **coup de grace**. 

 

“I’m by no fucking means strong as I have found my profound _weakness_ , through cruelty and unfairness, there’s only rendered _brokenness_.”


	48. Chapter 48

 Another mundane day in the establishment, the discharging process at  _Floreasca Clinical Emergency Hospital_ is a swift one. His belongings only consisting of a worn, sagging shoulder bag full of garments, mostly monochromatic, some Versace silk button-downs for when he’s more flamboyantly dressed and his usual appurtenance of a revolver, a flask, a crumpled pack of cigarettes and a lighter. Still under the onslaught of throbbing involuntary contractions and fighting the urge to _crumble_ and reduce down to  _puddle_ then, his penetrative hazel shoots through multitudes of blurred discs, reducing Mischa’s **intricate** features into muddled strokes. 

 

 

And **no** , it wasn’t one of those _atmospherical_ and _heavenly_ Impressionistic paintings with effects of changing time and catching the essence of his profound subject. It was weighing him down, too **incomprehensible** with the intense swirl of heat, making the colors swirl with ugly smudges. Lips tightly clench as his throat clicks, an inadvertent whimper; a sign of **weakness** , surfaces and he _represses_. Down to his brittle bones that continues to tremor with the idea of defeat.

 

He had drowned in the thought that he wouldn’t be able to hold her ever. Those thoughts had _suffocated_ him and he reminisces of what it seemed **sempiternal** ; through his recovery, he had shed such concentrated amount of salty tears because he _asphyxiated_ in the thought that he will never be able to hold her like he had so many times. Maybe she had reduced into a spectre of his  **hallucinations** , or even worse, a fleeting **apparition** as invisible shackles restrain him as his spine tingles with tenseness. The _petrification_ and the flaring  _helplessness_ becomes too burdensome and weighty for him to be liberated from.

 

Nigel’s lashes flutter as he looks through a blinding stream of light, too overwhelming in the midst of early spring as the enigmatic looking gaze lands back again onto her face. There still is some form of annoyance present as too-familiar sensation licks all over his spine as he extends an arm to stroke her cheek. 

 

“That’s how the pain manifests itself beneath my viscera and radiates into my whole existence. _Obsession_ hurts. That’s how pain passes from each other.” He doesn’t know if he’s talking to himself as stretched syllables echo through his tympanums or he’s projecting words at this _angelic_ **incandescence** that seem to ignite his core with some indescribable sensation. Perhaps it was _ebullience_ , maybe _acceptance_. He doesn’t know.  


	49. Chapter 49

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Twins Headcanon : dream + childhood

He recalls the day he stood **shoulder to shoulder** against his brother, along with about a hundred orphans gathered around the grounds of what used to be _Lecter Dvaras_ , their sanctuary with mama and papa, where their **fundamental** warmth had driven away all things _dark_ and _gloomy_. Now only an absence inside himself resides and the fear instills within him. His fingers are intertwined along with his brother’s, who is about an inch smaller and two shades lighter than his own tanned flesh; his **bibliomaniac** brother had buried behind books and sketchpads, while he rummaged through the dense woods, scampering about like an excited dog until the vehement tree barks instantly dispersed, their edges overlapped with flutter of agitation. _Exhausted_ and _beat_ , he’d fall into a sound slumber until dinner time came. Hannibal would draw him and sometimes he’d hear a distinctive scratching sound of pencil on paper. 

 

Now, his blood boils as his heart surges and beats with such intensity and the **sublime enormity** of his own heart is evident through pulsing blood of the vessel and he could almost feel Hannibal’s too. When the fear manifests into constant beatings and _maltreatment_ from the caretakers as well as more bigger kids, Nigel had put up a determined fight. He couldn’t even blame Hannibal for going entirely mute with all the **amalgamation** of fear and trauma from Mischa’s and their parents’ abrupt and untimely death. Everything seemed to spiral downward as the young twins had been caught in an _inescapable vortex_. It was as if the roofs of the building was crumpling overhead with nowhere to run. They only had each other’s vehement presence to relieve themselves from livid contusions and dribbles of blood which continuously marred Nigel’s flesh. Hannibal put up a _considerable opposition;_ he wasn’t going to be like a sitting duck upon the barrage of assaults, like a dazzling multitudes of rays through a faint curtain, but never tranquil and serene. It raided upon the twins like blitzkrieg. 

 

Words fail to reach him as his lips twitch. One more fucking curse and the baculine discipline would reign down upon Nigel again. With deep sense of dread, his body thuds against the hardwood floor, with a streak of blood escaping in dribbles as his virulent gaze lands towards the bully. All of a sudden, Hannibal lifts his intense maroon from the book back up to the unnamed bully - through constricted breath, as if a ball of fire had been lodged within his airway, he pummels the bigger boy along with Nigel, until the crimson river runs down his jaw, along the line of his throat as he drowns in his own fucking blood. The last _powerful_ , **decisive** blow sends a spray of blood erupting from his open gash and he falls flat to his face, _lifeless_ , _dead_. 

 

The reality hits them like a harsh smack of light and before Nigel even registers his eyelids tremor in the face of the **manifestation** of his imagination, they’re running and sprinting away, with their hands clutched against each other in the same fashion. Minute spasms travel down to the muscles in their cheeks. They’re not completely _unscathed_ as their shared blood trickles down their voluptuous lips. 

 

 **No** , they wouldn’t be amerced by this _retaliation_ and they will be always together. Through their sparkling innocence acting as a duplicity behind the rippling motion of colossal wave of _abhorrence_ and venomous gaze towards whoever causes harm. A **mass rally** of jabs and punches as they meet with silent _congregation_. The night of their first triumph over what seemed to be unconquerable; their first kill together. 


	50. Chapter 50

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Five times laughed" // For Mischa's prompt. I managed to slip some angst within it.

##  _i._

The swallowing beats seep into Nigel’s **unfathomable** caramel oceans as an array of _rhythmic_ march of technicolor slants glowing _illuminations_. They form a recurring undulation of milky way upon their pressed forms, with Mischa’s high heels atop of Nigel’s shined oxfords. _Primal_ and _vivid_ , they shine through the shadow of his heart as he drowns within Mischa’s radiance. Form-fitting **curvature** of her _elongated_ waist contained within a firm hold of his tight charcoal suit, his **roguish** vibe still shines through with a pop of color beneath his usual too-tight dress shirt. 

 

A recurrent trance where the club’s debauched ambiance settles, they’re standing amidst where the _primary colors_ coalesce to form a rainbow-colored **effervescence**. Nigel’s tainted darkness ebbs rapidly along with Mischa’s resonant light, _accentuated_ by his own as a sharp curve and protrusion along his cheeks tinge with lavender; _enigmatic_ and _encompassed_ in charming mystery. They’re no more of the burnt snapshots of memories, floating without intention in the air like _suffocating miasma_ and _soot_. No more as expandables upon the wretched world as most things turn okay eventually. No, more than okay. Even when they put up a good fight and lose. Their reality is upon here and now and their acceptance is through the coalescing breath, with the tips of their noses pressed down as they melt into the small, quiet room in the midst of ear-splitting blast and the ruckus of sea of faces. 

 

The corners of his lips tug deep into his cheeks, making his prominent cheekbones rise in return. 

 

 

##  _ii._

 

If only he could drown in the _loveliness_ of Mischa’s naked skin against his warm, **entrancing depths**. If only he could hear his heart stop dead when he registers the sunrise wake him up. And if only he could drown in those dark, _immeasurable_ embers like slow-burning candles, admiring the view unfolded before him. Raindrops suspend in the air like held breath before a deep exhale, they’re on the cusp of trembling down as they lash against the closed window. **A sun-shower** passing overhead as the sun-baked ground quenches of its thirst with the downpour.  

 

His conscious is lost in the multitude; Mischa’s young voice piling up on top of each other like a soaring tower rearing up into the sky. With Hannibal perched atop a flat rock, sketching the younger siblings as Mischa and Nigel watch the skipping stones jump with such defiance of gravity, shooting through the tranquil surface with ferocious speed before it sinks. The gradually growing streaks ripple across the surface of the lake and Nigel’s fingers clutch Mischa’s smaller and seemingly fragile ones with firmness. Call it **tabula-rasa of Lecters,** and he never could forget that first drop of refreshing water quelling his worries, as it seemed to splash against his cheeks as her lips pecked a kiss. 

 

“ _Thank you, ‘Annibal and Nigel. For taking me all the way out here.”_

 

Still entrapped in his reverie, on his way back, he could hear his high-pitched laugh, forming a sparkling constellation to light their way home as Hannibal’s impeccably blended sketch depicts the younger sibling’s unrestrained expression upon the scenery plucked out from a postcard. 

 

 

##  _iii._

“Ah…ahhhhhh- **CHOO**!”

 

Nigel’s head bounces against the headboard as it propels forward with such velocity, sending his neck to almost bend ninety-degrees as he futilely covers his mouth. The tip of his high nose is already painted red, along with his potently sharp cheekbones. Fighting through the _lassitude_ and _sluggishness_ of the feverous cold, the obstinate strain of heat continues to linger between his eyes, against the back of his eyeballs. A tingling sensation fully blossoms into a dull throb, then turns into relentless pins and needles as his aggravated breathing turns erratic. Resting his back against cool pillow and burying himself beneath a thick, fluffy duvet, he watches with half-lidded eyes with noticeably gaunt facade. 

 

“Remember our mama making a hot cocoa whenever we would return home from the woods with red-tinged cheeks and hands? Drink up.” 

 

Mischa’s warmth seem to be transferred upon his hand as his slightly trembling fingers accepts the hot beverage with graciousness. Slightly wincing as the boiling sensation spreads behind his eyes, he fights through the cannonade of blurring strokes, that reduce the dark, rich, frothy liquid and a little dollop of whipped cream into the swirling mixture of darkness tainting the celestial beauty. Exhaling audibly and pressing the curve of back against the headboard with a thud, the muddy morning light feels more warmer and moister than before, like a tropical rain forest. 

 

Decidedly un-put together and with his usual bed head, Nigel looks up and clears his throat, making his sensitive nose tickle up once again. Despite his desperate attempt to hold back yet another sneeze, he does it once again into the cup and comes back with more mussed-up look with his nose dipped in the light, cloudy cream. 

 

“Hope you didn’t burn that _cute_ nose,” Mischa teases him in her usual quirky way and although it’s only his head that peeks through the thick lump of duvet, he’s comforted by Mischa’s touch as she reaches over and gently strokes his hair as she removes a stubborn lock that continues to poke through the deep curve of his pale eyebrow. Leaning back into the touch, his quiescent form rattles with a hint of a short burst of laugh, sounding more like a hack. 

 

 

##  _iv._

 

_[text] Nigel Lecter, your requested personal journal is completed, please pick it up at your convenience. Thank you for your business._

 

As soon as he recovers enough from the long-suffering cold and Mischa’s relentless teasing, his recalcitrant form pushes forward. He had to repair a defect upon a gold-engraved revolver he had gifted her for her birthday with the inscription _‘My darling Mischa, love forever, Nigel,_ ’ and pick up the aforementioned item from the renowned craftsman. Even under his laymen eyes, the tactile feel of the buttery leather, its exposed stitching on outer spine, and torn edges of the handmade paper which adds more sensual appeal strikes home with exquisite artistry.

 

A few hours after, with a carefully wrapped book clutched beneath his strong arm and the gun encased within the new holster, a thrilling energy seem to radiate from him as his long strides make rhythmic clicks upon the cobblestones. With the drop of sunset against his back, he looks above their flat and sees her silhouette radiate with seraphic calm and he sighs, a faint smile, quiet and thoughtful, sketches through. A provocation as the imagined sight of her exaltation and the warm radiance of the image unfurls through his aura like a dazzling light. 

 

Mischa’s already locked in his embrace and a huff-like laughter echoes through the larynx and contains within the vessel of his mind. Forever tangled within the slatted ribs. 

 

_[ I’m entirely lost in those deep brown eyes and entirely unable to process the words to say so. ]_

 

The inscription beneath the wrapping paper, in his scrawled cursive. 

 

 

##  _v._

 

Lashes flutter as the first snowflakes catches within his eyelashes. He’s dressed lighter than usual in the midst of winter. Slightly tipsy, his form coalesces and he stands in the lights of Mischa’s heart, pressed side to side, his heavy limbs supporting her petite frame. Or rather, she’s propping him with her arm around his tight middle. The dark-freckled night sky brings awe and through their crystallized breaths, he’s immediately plunging into the inescapable vortex of the past. The immaculate snow making angels of them all. He feels something staring back at him - not like a single entity, but rather a sense of amalgamated sense of everything. The tactile touch of the flake upon his tongue, the whipping wind against his cheek like a gleaming blade, the speckles of stars seemingly so close they’re telling him to reach for them. 

 

 _Unrestrained_ and _carefree_ , his lax facade loosen further as he nuzzles into Mischa’s light locks, and he lets the contraposition of the resounding warmth, the core of his body brimming with his usual intense hues along with the seeping coldness from his too thin material caressing him. 

 

Abruptly, he feels dazed as though he’d just received a blow to the head. His face instantly blanches, and there’s a subversive silence swallowing everything better left unseen. 

 

A crimson spreads like **fading petals** and the familiar ghosts of impressions take over. He might have heard a whoosh and he doesn’t know if the bullet had been intended for Mischa or him. 

 

Still locked in the spectre of _exuberance_ , yet the blossoming crimson poisons him slowly. Infinitesimal but fatal as his fading sight and his figure reducing into a rag doll. **Severed nerves** , that simple mantra like a conversation between two strangers, as insufficient as his shuddering body upon the sinking snow. 

 

 **The impression of laugher** becomes barely an old recollection, something he would be entirely absent with as his empty hazel gazes through the ectoplasm of Hannibal’s face. 


	51. Chapter 51

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since memories triggered by scent are the strongest… The scent of roses.
> 
> Featuring the Lecterlings, aka Hannibal, Nigel and Mischa.

The sun’s flat glare radiates as Nigel treads deeper into the woods, the world buried in **trenchant** heap of snowdrift, still whirling and sculpting beneath his heavy footsteps. The arctic chill burns through his **mordant** skeleton as he squints even more than usual. The dazzling _brilliance_ of the scattered diamonds and _glittering_ starlights upon the sinking sun of the afternoon, now seeping with ardent shades of golds and reds doesn’t lighten the mood as Hannibal and Mischa’s figures turn a blind eye; he hadn’t even seen the cremation process and looked at their still corpses as they remained to be snapshots. Those pictures had an overwhelming tendencies to _overpower_ and fill him with such wretched _provocative_ images that would drain him of its vigor. Even their  **contoured** shapes of Mischa’s _compacted_ features and Hannibal’s (and his own) _chiseled_ structure becomes obscured and fades away. 

 

 **What if they were solar eclipse.** _He the moon, now soon to be rising as the sun sinks beneath the horizon, which seems to be just a slip away?_ Then they could be something entirely and **uniquely** special. As they stretch the fleeting time that seem like forever and manifest something _great_ , something _powerful_. Something that he could wait years for. **What if they touched once again in tangible reality and the whole world goes dark.** _Oh my darlings, I would not care for anything as much as I would have you._

 

The faint haloes ripple across the unreality of it all, as his dilated hazel, overly blown with etched crimson locks upon the bundle of roses he had placed just last night. Faint moisture clings onto the petal, _threatening_ to fall onto the ground as the veined surface of the underside withers, helplessly falls upon the ground and gets picked up by relentless lash of wind. Hazel struggles to focus, as yet another sordid recollection passes through him with such an evocative scent from the flower, a _signifier_ of love and **shed blood** upon the earth. The sweet fragrance does nothing to cover up his muffled cry, becoming more prominent through the wailing force of the fireball lodged between his windpipe - Mischa and Hannibal’s low, murmuring voice seem to rise and take on an affectionate tone, maybe in **mollification** , to soothe his longing and yearning grief. The fact that he just doesn’t want their hearts - he wants their _flesh_ , _blood_ and _bones_ , voice, thoughts and their increasing pulse beneath his fingertips. But most of all, all of their fingerprints marching upon his own. 

 

He feels like sliding into sleep as though falling into a sudden abyss and he’s in his empty room, with his body as still as that of a **frozen corpse,** with his eyes fixatedly gravitated towards the _fading petal_ which seem to spread like a spilling blood with every minute movement that signals both the sounds of the laughter and shared moans and groans. That insistent and desperate strength of fading voices, so _distinctive_ and _characteristic_ that it becomes a frightening death grip, somehow making him to feel like he’s drowning. 

 

The time halts as if he’s stepped into another dimension; none of the things outside the space which they occupy matters, or he’s in too much of a obscured haze to **conceptualize** it within his fragmented synapses and muddled memories. He futilely takes a deep breath and feels drops of saliva clinging onto the side of his face and he could see the color and taste the ash. Lips twitching at the deep sense of dread as he feels his own body thud against the inscribed  **gravestone** with his siblings’ names. Despite the _resistance_ embedded deep in his muscles as it threads through each fiber, the feeling of sinking, yanked backwards to the realm of **netherworld** becomes like a huge magnet he can’t escape. _No, he doesn’t want to escape as he flutters away like a bird_ , more so like the **trembling candle flame** teetering beyond extinguished, to leave a vanishing trace of potent scent, before the atmosphere completely consumes him whole. 


	52. Chapter 52

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since memories triggered by scent are the strongest… The scent of gunpowder and leather.
> 
> { Heavily influenced by Léon; The Professional. }

The empty dead souls linger by a _vague_ , **threading** blur of smokes, settling heavy against the ravaged and dimmed flat. Pressing his lips together hard enough to let the blood show through, Nigel doesn’t give a permission to close his fiery hazel that still brims with fluttering love as he peels back the fabric of his button-down shirt. He clenches his teeth as a _serpentine_ hiss squeezes out along with the **concentrated** saltiness of his tears. The strange, vivid night filled with spectacle of crimson and charred scents of granule powder tastes coarse and repulsive against his tastebuds, yet her absent presence is still there in a pallid ghost form. She’s the starlight, bright but burning within him and she smiles as his own lips curl faintly through the miasma. 

 

 _There would be no forgiveness_ , through the blasted strewn heaps of severed limbs and curves of the necks which had **staggered** to breath desperate air into their lifeless and still lungs only exists in contours of _charcoal_ and _dust_. Pressing close in the confines of crumbled walls with multitudes of gunshot paths, **stampeded**  through the utilitarian furniture and necessities, he snaps open the cylinder barrel and sees only one bullet lodged within the cylinders. Hammer. Smoothing a finger around the hammer, the grip upon the panel tightens, as he feels the raised inscribed letters  He couldn’t see nor feel them as he hears more march towards his safe haven. 

 

Even when he’d lost so much blood already and his exceptional marksman skills were draining like that fluid, his **awakened** senses hone. His skin is already looking more veined, drained of color as his roughened coppery tone becomes as thin and transparent as _crumbled_ writing paper. When they were together, they had been their own private universe. Through the smoky scent of the gunpowder seeping into their personal scents, drawing crescent shapes as his body ached for it. Hands of a **capable** killer, now brought down by a pack of even more savage killers akin to packs of hyenas as his chance descends down into an abysmal **secession**. Through blood-leached face as evening draws in around him, he exhales deeply and scents the rich, comforting scent of his leather jacket still clinging onto his form like the scent of pouring rain upon the woods. He’s already surrounded by the thick trunks and barks on both sides by _darkening fields_ through his wavering grasp upon the reality and imagination. 

 

Pushing through the debris and remnants of his previous life as he had sent Mischa away with their adopted son named after their deceased brother wrapped in his **sempiternal** protective layer that had been with him for all his life, he desperately tried to find their own private history as he attempts to seal this particular chapter of their life with a life long **documentary** ; on whether or not this was meant to be, as he didn’t want to turn any of this into bittersweet poetry. Letting himself free from the **inescapable** quagmire and taking a determined step towards the man whom he had considered an alley, the most _dependable_ source of his stability and resourceful company now turned into the perfect paradigm of arch-nemesis, he breaks through a blend of heavy mist. His molasses-like steps, too languid and grueling as trembling fingers clutch around the familiar mold of weathered handle of his pocket knife, embossed with the Lecter emblem. A minute pinch of his brows confirm how mundane a task brings exhaustion over his battered frame, emaciated over with lack of shuteye and solidification of fleeting memories. 

 

Before his focused gaze sparks with flaring electricity having nowhere to go to complete the circuit, a strange violence wells up within him with the spurring closure upon his bated breath. The thoughts never cease to tear through him as the knife connects with snap of his wrist, muscles aching as it leaves his hand with the conserved energy as he hears a harsh snap, disconnecting the diabolical attempts upon his darlings. He needed to know the reason why his view is skewed and the world is slanted, as he’s more devoted to these questions and potent imageries, the eerie portent closes in as each of them become another quasi-permanent fixture upon the rubbles and crumbled and demolished strength within him fades with ceaseless flow of blood, the blood which trace his hazel and sharp cheeks, darkening and thickening into a viscous ooze. 

 

_“You’ve given me a taste for life. I wanna be happy. Sleep in a bed, have roots. And you’ll never be alone again, Mischa.”_


	53. Chapter 53

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since memories triggered by scent are the strongest… The scent of coffee. 
> 
> Nigel x Gabi.

Rough and calloused fingertips idly trace the rim of the wide cup, the whirling liquid still emitting multitudes of ghastly spectres into the crisp air of the autumn. The warmth resonated through the intricate ceramic cup and he breathes in the rich, dark scent of the roasted coffee beans; it’s not the usual velvety lingering after-taste that caresses his throat in a gratifying manner, but it’s more so discernible as it comes across as an unpleasant burnt and grainy, even scratchy sensation that hit the top of the gullet and back of the throat. Just like his healing wounds beneath his thin button-down. The air sweeps through the slightly risen, now scabbing expanse of gnarled line, becoming more rooted within his existing sun-kissed flesh. Now that he was gradually recovering his health and as soon as he could take a step without having to double over both his vision and frame, organs rattling and muscles constricting as spasmodic clutch held rein against every flaring nerve, he consistently stretched his legs around the neighborhood. 

 

His hazel still bore that resounding crackling embers beneath slightly filmy gaze, drawing a panorama upon the familiar landscape he didn’t think would permanently click into the recess of his mind. The slowed steps of the pedestrians, immensely caught up in such poignant and emotional pluck and glide of the bow. The emitted sound become fevered as the composition nears its climactic zenith; though he’s a laymen when it comes to music, the piece itself seem to symbolize and condense his life in a mere few minutes. 

 

 _Fleeting innocence_ and declaration of love from C, the _depressive_ and poignancy of F which comes from **funeral lamentation** and misery from his parents’ and Mischa’s death, the _melancholy_ and _distress_ , yet the incomparable feel of triumph of D and capping everything off with **lyricism** , satisfied passion and _tender gratitude_ of G. The mini-concert continues and more throngs of people gather around in a semicircle, an intermittent applauses and whistles split through the barrier of windows and other white noises. As his ashen blond locks swirl against the rushing wind, his arm leans towards his secured bike, attempting to catch a glimpse of a petite woman behind the cello.  

 

That tender gratitude and _appreciation_ hadn’t been reciprocated as his thumping heart fails to ebb down to his usual steady rhythm. The peerless ability of an _exemplary genius_ \- capable of producing such wide spectrum of human conditions as well as being the most emollient salve upon his injury. _Broken instruments could be replaced, but her?_ **She deserved to be exalted with utmost caliber.** She was superlative in every way. 

 

 **A whole museum of eccentricities.** He takes a sip of the full-bodied liquid, nourishing and savory upon his parched tongue. 


	54. Chapter 54

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since memories triggered by scent are the strongest… The scent of fresh bread. 
> 
> Featuring the Lecterlings.

Multitudes of fingers blur as they knead the risen dough with such expertise; they were calloused in places, roughened by house chores, yet they were so tender and soft. Their mama’s hands, which turned their dada’s daily hunts into most _scrumptious_ meat pies or brothy and **succulent** soup that would drive away the **chilled bones** and despair of the lengthening wintry nights which reduced his own vision into a pure **fantastical realm**. Hurtling wind became splitting whispers through the weathered walls and the coldness mellowed by the buttery scent of freshly baked bread from the hearth. When the _coldness_ seeped through his still growing bones and cheeks and lips drenched with more color, along with his growling stomach voracious for a huge chunk of still steamy porous fibers of the crusty bread, he had been unable to detach himself from the scent - as _predators_ would detect any **perpetrators** upon his territory. 

 

His mama seemed to have acquired some kind of **special magnetic force** as she knew just what to get him color with his usual tanned healthy glow. The sun had long disappeared beneath another pack of tumultuous gray clouds and he was comforted by a thick duvet, a half loaf of crusty bread cut into chunky cubes and some toasted on a generous serving of creamy potato dumpling soup with a dollop of cream. The herbal _fragrance_ is so soothing and immediately enhances his **melancholy mood** by a mile - however active he was, he could only so so much with the residual energy of a ten-year-old boy. 

 

With scarce meat and relentless onslaught of the winter **arcadia** ; he himself cohabited with the _powerfulness_ with its _uncontainable_ beauty. And that he would always maintain that strong exterior, though a strange violence that masked through sparkling heap of crystals, he would retain that soft interior. Always attune to his physical composure and to clutch onto the pure strength. 

 

Mischa sits right on his right thigh, as Hannibal’s straightened back press against the other side. Cocooned by his siblings, he lets out a content sigh and rips off a small chunk, to be dipped it in the rich, creamy broth and picking up a bit of cream so that he could feed Mischa. His own smaller fingers ease the tension caused by the **permeating** coldness as he places a firm hand upon her shoulder blade and arm. The _undulating_ warmth soon drives away the tenacious, uncomfortably penetrating and biting coldness as crackling fire effervesces from the hearth. His mama’s hands are upon his cheek, barely touching, yet the _affectionate_ gesture has his still and placid face to crack into a chuckle. 

 

 **He yearns to be taller,** so that he could serve as the protector of this particular realm. 


	55. Chapter 55

## Notoriously Infamous || A Disposition of a Bravado 

 

Imposing and repellent,   
his outwardly crude manner is an **expectant** effect   
the fortified _carapace_ ,   
a person who was forced to grow up way too fast   
with all the **insecurities** manifesting into a coat of _insolence_    
and _self-conceitedness_.

 

He wanted the others to _scrutinize_ him    
yet no one ever dared to probe him further.  
The **vulnerability** stripping him raw,   
like a corn husk peeling off in layers.   
all the hotness rushing like _exploding fireworks_  
affecting every inch of his skin and flaring nerves.

 

blood gradually **freezes** over, shudder traversing   
through the curves and dips of his spine   
the distinctive line between his back muscles  
the balance had been teetered and tinkered around.   
the _rumble_ of his heart grows erratic   
like a piece of burnt up engine letting out **noxious** fumes.

 

Body dipped in _molasses_ from head to toe,   
as he walks through a mud track, weighing him down further.   
The dead silence of the quiet, dimmed corridor entirely underwater  
the distant **whizz** of the traffic  
the _flickering_ light from afar grows more so haloed and hazy   
with each languid _blink_. 

 

the whirling smoke pluck the thread gradually flay and weaken.  
never giving a fuck about how low he could sink or   
how high he could float in cloud nine.   
All the **capriciousness** of life,   
No matter, he would never die on his knees or   
surrender to _despair_ or _absence_ of **unperturbed sanctum**.  

 

the shrieking screams turn into a _sonorous_ aria.    
from the **peril** and gruesome sight of _bones_ and _blood_    
nor change how he manifested himself upon the world.   
His **aesthetic** evolved into wretched gleam of _silver blade_ and   
columns of _compressed air_ pushing the cylindrical metal   
to be lodged upon the **inner skull.**  

 

Muddling and turning it into a pulp,   
the fleeting life futilely clutched upon with the swaying fingertips.      
the brewing anger and _gleaming_ _fury_ instills tangible warmth   
throbs with a kind of **electricity** , gathered inside every inch of his vein   
as sense of power begins to simmer as   
it sets itself deep within those _soulful_ eyes.


	56. Chapter 56

## An Invisible Hand || Dedicated to @little-lady-lecter 

 

An incomparable _bitterness_ , _desperation_ and _ruefulness_ ,   
along with helpless gaze, weak limbs, porous bones,  
appearing too emaciated and pallid with ghastly skin,   
drained of his usual vigor and virility. 

 

The vast sky crushes him in its _immaculateness_ ,   
the symbolism of purity   
tainted with his traumatic experience.   
Absolutely _powerless_ and all of his efforts educed useless.

 

The scent of **death** still heavily lingers in the air in his mind,   
he’s _suffocating_ with the revolting scent of the blood   
and sinews, pulverized and disintegrated   
Like a demon waiting for his _sacrificed_ prey, 

 

There’s horrible streak of light through it all -   
as he chooses a survivalist’s way out.   
Instead of suffering in the merciless bout of the mother earth  
with his fortified barriers as high as the mountainous castle walls, 

 

 **indestructible** , _unreachable_ ,   
yet there’s a single profound weakness.   
whoever clever enough would be able to round the _obstruction_    
and find their way in as they

 

slowly **tear** ,   
 **rip** ,   
 **gnaw** apart the small fiber,  
becoming threads and holes that held his fragile heart together.

  
   
an _illusion_ , yet painfully tangible and   
not merely _ostensible_.   
Its essentialness an inescapable shackle upon his psyche.  
 _They took away her freedom to love._


	57. Chapter 57

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> from the meme; send “RIP” and I’ll write a drabble of my Muse dying.

The fine, almost invisible traces of _sketches_ upon his forehead deepen like a series of decisive set of croquis lines as he lulls between the boundary between life and death; through the obscurity of **monochromatic** strokes manifesting into blurry _indistinguishable_ shapes, overlapped before him in the distance. _Undulating_ , _wavering_ , _breaking_ like kissing waves of the shore. Foaming along the water’s edge as his lips gradually part. Through a multitude of whirling crimson unfurling out from the corner of his lips like a long ribbon, the edges  **quiver** around, grazing his own skin in soft shudders. Trembling _appendages_ are limp against the empty air, which is not his own. Instantly dispersing as the boundaries overlap again and again, in a _soundless_ , fluttering **agitation**. 

 

The assailant works quickly and efficiently, constricting the amount of oxygen from _ample_ to **suffocating**. The other co-conspirator who had been standing back comes forward and took the plastic bag between them. Working calmly and _methodically_ , the first one, who had his fingers clutched upon tussled strands of Nigel’s matted ashen blonde, plucks his head out of the murky pool full of his watery discharge. All the _tears_ , _sweat_ , _blood_ , _pus_ , the silent _cries_ and  **shrieks** and **screams** muffled through the ravaged body. Now blood-stiffen clothes, their rotting and fraying fibers become matted to his flesh. He feels an onslaught of _incinerating_ white and **frigid** desolate _chill_ licking over the expanse of his body, the sensation steadily moving through his scalp as snapshots of his lover becomes more of a **lucid reality**. 

 

Feeling an invisible hand, full of gnarled and desiccated limbs without a source of life present in talon-like charred hook grasp the frantically beating muscle, each inch of vein shrieks in brewing thunderstorm, turning every living organism down to rust. All the good things ever happened to him had already been _c orroded_ and _tainted_. Yet, each memory had been preserved like fossilized recollections, **treacherously** vivid and perceivable; even after Aiden’s death, it’s so easy to immerse himself in the pool of strands of memory, like an artwork painting over his soul. The sharpest pieces turn scalding than hand grenade shrapnel to perforate through his overworked heart, his **shattered self.**

 

The world _distorts_ beneath his swollen flesh, as the crimson **blaze** roars up as though threatening to engulf him further. His body, little fat he had left, muscles and viscera, they all pierce with jabbing and throbbing pain as the magnetic force weighs him down as he rapidly loses his strength. They had slipped past each other’s shadows, passing along as a caress and until he would cease to exist akin to black _miasmic_ smoke being belched out from his body as he takes one last flight. 

 

The **thunder** gets his heart pumping, pounding faster and harder than he had perceived to be and he could see him slip between his fundamental fire’s orange flame, then growing more indistinguishable as his gut emits a last distant scream. The film closes in, along with his rushed inhales, the fire  _subsides_ , and darkness creeps back like the tranquil blanket before he feels the last stretch of an **almighty** thunder, along with the crackling embers. Thousands of fireworks goes off at once before his life snaps like a twig, his undying soul shocked out of his body as he whirls up through the inky black sky where no starlight greets upon him. The residual energy flares, the thick, heavy blood still creeping from his dark shadows, as the dawn carves around him through bulging eyes, tinged with crimson as the world reflects through his  **mountainous** gaze. 


	58. Chapter 58

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nigel x an OC. 
> 
> My hopes of being stolen  
> Might just ring true  
> Depends who you prefer
> 
> But if it’s true you’re gonna run away  
> Tell me where  
> I’ll meet you there
> 
> { A drabble based on Arctic Monkeys - Fire and the Thud }

He doesn’t know who the footsteps belongs to; _are those his or hers?_ Maybe they don’t come one at the time, maybe they’re his shadows zipping through the dense woods towards their oak tree, **grandiose** and standing tall as a skyscraper even in the midst of the _tranquility_. Now haunted by the  **indistinguishable** identities merging into bodies with only the barest traces of mass. His outer boundary quivers with the slightest hint and he could feel himself pull as threadbare t-shirt pulls itself. Soon, everything blurs into  _vagueness_ like blotch of ink drops in the lake. 

 

It’s not the usual _sun-drenched_ meadow with lush green spread like the impeccable rug. Where his own steps still tread as faint evidence of his existence still becomes overwhelming. The scenery seems unusually still and he gazes over his shoulder, hazel fixated close to the trunk where the bark had been stripped off, the engravings of their initial encompasses within the symbol of infinity. In the dawn of the morning, Kekipi sees the fleeting dream come to reality, as their soul’s emergence takes its place within the contours of her face. 

 

The vision honing into an _absolute clarity,_ her cheeks are already wet with dripping moisture. Just one more time, if incohesive shadows of him could made themselves to be tangible again. They continue to emerge and waver back into the rustling grass and several forms scatter in the shape of rippling shadows, reflected upon the lake. 

 

The scent _intensifies_ , **coalescing** along with the distinctive scent of the foliage as cool lick of wind dries her tears. His musk, faint scent of cigarette, an etched smirk containing an air of sandalwood, along with a metallic scent of blood. Soon, it’s the only thing she could detect, as large hazel beads with splattering eruption of crimson contours through his face, she had felt his last exhale dissipate like a whirling smoke in the air. His crystallized breath lingering like his ever-present soul. Like a stroke of abstract painting sculpting itself to form the outline of his body, there’s only one thing that she wishes to utter. _If he ever allows her to, if he’ll please allow her._

 

She could still see the street lights flicker as they line the road towards his club. It branches off to the back entrance and she watches as all switches flick off at exactly the same time. The settling darkness weighs more than iron, as she walks along the straight line, making a beeline for the edge of the water. She raises her head to the pattering rain, masking her fresh saltiness. 

 

_I can’t accept your death, come back to me._


	59. Chapter 59

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nigel x Mischa.

_[ text: Mischa ] Goodbye, dear sister._

 

Lips _extend_ , as his trembling fingers seeks to reach the outer edges of his heart. _The strange chill_ , accompanied by the familiar hopelessness of the despair ravages through the exposed side, still convulsing from the bullet that had torn there as watery discharge, with putrefying amalgamation of fluids mingle within his relatively intact vessel. With each blunt force, the rattling of his bones and silent cries propelling from within instantly becomes an **agglomerating** fire churning his insides, parching his core as he _disintegrates_. He wants to see their faces, which seemingly continues to hover around the peripheral of his eyelids like multitudes of fluttering flame. He could feel the blood draining out of his eyes as he silently demands. **Why, fuck, why.**  

 

The days and nights pass so without note. The concept of time frays along with his _dessicated_ limbs, a succession of _daybreaks_ and _twilights_ only seep him much deserved color as he’s devoid of any. The passage of time was only marked by grazing strokes of both _fresh_  wounds and healed flesh. His corporeality essentially reduced to a blank canvas and he could only make his body; as not an inch of skin had been left **untouched**. Already severed with the idea of vehement strength, had slipped into the pale darkness among the crystallized mist that drowns the _monochromatic_ , industrial premise. 

 

He blinks violently yet with much effort, his lashes fluttering in agitation; his form nears its extinction as his unseemly nakedness becomes even more so evitable. Through blank **incomprehension** , the numbing sensation further renders his synapses useless. He would rather have the white-hot bullet expunge him with splattered meat of the brain with empty, lifeless gaze reflecting the arctic wintry wonderland than to wither away like a cracked leaf. He already feels like the contours that distinguished where he starts and ends had been crumbled into ambiguity and left nothing that could be recognized as him. 

 

The weight of long, drawn-out agonies and _concurrent_ , rhythmic echoes of **appalling** suffering transmits to him like an electric shock. Rain pours down and the sheer force of the sound of its approach takes off his caked blood from his body and he burns through the suffocating coldness, like a caught flame upon the hearth as it contains within his vessel. _To burn for **Mischa**_ as he slips in and out of the orange flicker, growing into a heap of glowing embers. 

 

The darkness creeps back into the woods, where he had been taken. He looks more like sleeping than dead, as wandering shadows shrill a distant scream as he watches a dramatic **thunderclap** etch through the horizon. The frozen, still face of his radiant with thousands of fireworks as he whirls up and through the lightless sky, soon beneath the pitch-dark clouds, as _tumultuous_ as his restless apparition. 


	60. Chapter 60

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An Empathetic Beast || (A Disposition of a Bravado)
> 
> *An ongoing series with Nigel's POV.

When he was younger, he would kindle a match, light the tall candle and watch the bluish flame envelop around the base of the wick until it burned down to stub. Understated even in his most fevered _zenith_ of emotions, a lulling combination that could only be agglomerated into **nostalgia** with yearning  **euphoria** of what could’ve had beens, the silent _fluctuation_ had warmed him through the rippling motions. It would get worse until it doesn’t; until the charred edges widened along with the gaping hole in his chest. His own straightened composure would sway like a flickering light upon the obsidian darkness, the gradual moonbeam along with the untarnished purity of the flurry does nothing to blanket him with yearning warmth as the whirling snowdrift sings unending _requiem_. Almost entirely filled with void as he lets one word linger against his still warm lips. In hushed tones as he regards the world with half-shut gaze, his drawn, deep ridges of his eyebrows pinch slowly, as he suppresses the scalding embers behind the diaphanous orbs.

 

It wasn’t going to heal until his form manifests itself into the lotus flower midst all things **desolate** , he would continue to reborn and rise tall like the star - _burning_ , _encompassing_ his fundamental nature to shimmer and shine. A quiet death as it marks another chapter of his life. Through the  _negativity_ and  _pressure_ , he finds an unendurable sense of satiation as layers of his hardened flesh chants with the forbidden shrill, before growing **ominously silent**. Through same stardust and elements, he would have **two**  individuals that he cares enough and vice versa to hold him up. _Love and limerence exists in the infinite sense_ , just like how the rows of conjoined candles would emit such an  _encompassing_ light, acting as a sempiternal blanket. His healthily glowing skin now looks more like the sandy dunes underneath the relentless sun, the heatwaves seeping through in a bright orange glow as the extinguished hearth enlivens with smaller clumps and rows of candlelights dancing across the cold-seeped walls. 

 

Perhaps that sole sensation was even more so vehement and powerful than the sweeping wildfire always seemingly translate the unchecked emotion that would roll around his heart as his view engulfed with wide array of crimsons and oranges. He could feel the clumped fibers of his muscles swell and expand, as he perches close against the ledge of the hearth, completely gravitated towards the _event horizon_ of the rippling boundaries that grows even more expansive. With more coppery glow tinged upon the stretched expanse of the small hills and valleys, he lets out a sigh of relief with an air of his **true nature** of the emotions that had provoked in him with such an intimate swell - although fleeting, the invisible and nonexistent gesture is still upon him like an assailing spillage of the wavering flame, continuously wrapping him over as his thoughts cross a boundary. Perhaps their soul hadn’t left the premise of the vast grounds. They penetrate through his skin with such force and grandiosity, something akin to the sweltering summer afternoon as his breath catches in his lungs. 

 

He could still remember his fingers clutching the still-warm candle stub and bending down to scent the long-extinguished smoke emit such a warm glow. There’s still a resounding warmth upon the bone-chilling grounds of the castle, where Death had claimed its most recent victims. It’s like looking deep into the heart of the new flame, alit in the center of his heart, supposedly burning off the smell of death as its edges flickered. Though it could cause wild destruction and create a mismatched mess, he would always be drawn into the **persistent** nature of it; even when reduced to dust as the last perceivable etch of smoke leave its premise, it still clings upon the chambers of his lungs as it morphed into colossal mountainous waves, the swelling chorus rising up like the tower as individual drops of the viscous wax meld and blurred into thick streaks, pouring down upon him. 

 

Since then, everything _amplified_ as if he always had a microphone in front of his pulsating heart. It’d be always there with the darkest moment of the night as he watched such infinitesimal flame take ahold of the vast expanse of the castle like the chilly rain water, seeping through and soaking him whole as the warmth trickled down his back. It would be a continuous fuel residing within him to make him loud. When such unwavering patience and benevolence would thin down, he would always remember that haloing flame, turning into a long, luxurious stream of sunray upon the onslaught of the rain.

 

Within all of the _complicatedness_ and _brokenness_ of such losses, the smoke clings onto his fingers like it would motor oil and gunpowder, spreading across his skin as his personal cologne that would be unique as the molecules dipped in carbon and dust. Even when his own corporeality dies quietly upon the  **immeasurable** stretch of distance like the aforementioned star, still, he would feel its fucking presence like the tears of the soul. Like the sailors relying solely upon the **coordinated** map of the celestial bodies, he is nothing without that hint of light as his fingers touches upon the sky, as it alights the path he journeys. Within that black-clad form retracting his figure into the silent pitch-black of the night, his heart-print would always be vivid with such luminescence.

 

Tears had already been parched dry, yet the air of desperation becomes the leap over an ocean, as the stone casts over the unending ripple of heatwave, as it descends. Such _impermanent_ grief becomes whole and he wonders with utter disbelief how the mallet of unforgivable life would slam him down if Hannibal and Mischa would meet the same fate. 

 

~~

 

His blood would **resurgent** as the coiled emotion buried within the bed of coal would come alive, like an epiphany upon the desolate castle walls that had been haunted with a cloak of disguise. Not when he had been embracing the Earth which continuously seeped his own crimson, certainly not when he had been incapacitated for periods at time whenever his relentlessness and poor judgment had his cells to shriek in onslaught of incinerating heat.

 

Now surrounded by such coldness that brought back the sense of bittercold  _animosity_ , goosebumps rise on his forearms, on his back as he hurries to shelter beneath the lengthening streaks of the city lights, his form projecting a tunnel-vision as his form squats down lower. As numerous streaks bounce and ricochet off the visor of his tinted helmet, such mountainous gaze that used to bear the wintry wonderland presented upon him manifests in neon colors, the same world transcribed into another world as their still absent forms become the guardian angel upon such **impermanence** , yet he stops aching as the fat tire emits the scent so familiar. As he plummets his foot against the accelerator, the world reduces into a dot of vortex. The velocity gravitating him as if he had been walking along the gravelled alley with such bravado, dust arising all around him as his soul becomes malleable with his existentialism. 

 

He had been both a  _fighter_ and a _survivor_ , with a heart of gold that would morph into something even more beautiful if one should poke and prod through the tenacious layers of his outer adamantine surface and make one’s way into his lives. He wasn’t _immortal_ , yet he lived like one as the latter suggested that he had been in a losing side of things quite often. No walls could be that  _impenetrable_ , as nothing could be preserved for **eternity**. Even when his whole world had been crumbling apart through pricking eyes, shrinking heart and constricting lungs, even when his wings had been bent and broken, even when he knows when he’s fighting a losing battle as it loomed over his existence. No matter what he believes, the author of his unfinished book still continues to write the building climactic height of _amplification_ and _intensification_ \- through their  **serendipitous** meeting, there’s a bubbling swell, tending the tumultuous ocean inside of him as it readies to turn into a tsunami.

 

Intoxicating within the bubbling heat as his skin expands with such incandescent light of the exploding bomb, he watches the outstretched view with such an encompassing gaze. As he himself would continually _grow_ and  _spread_ , create more life and feeding their own energy. As long as he fed the other’s addictions and make that swell into something greater and  _transcendent_. Sometimes, the world required a certain bit of **insanity** to reach greatness.


	61. Chapter 61

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Leave a “Shag Me” in my ask, and I’ll write a dirty drabble about our characters.
> 
> Nigel x Mischa. Requested drabble.

When Mischa comes back from her rather tiring and mundane work from the library, Nigel always accommodated to what his little sister needed. As soon as Mischa had opened the door for him to greet her, he would advance with a continuous flare  **traversing** through his spine as they complete the full circuit with the press of his form. The overwhelming _inexpressibility_ beats them like a series of surging waves kissing over the water’s edge as the weightless foam as they move as one. A more latent  _thrilling_ energy seems to flow out and collect on every pore of their bodies. **Cascaded** through Mischa’s flowing blonde waterfall, it trails down all the way to press without any empty space as their bodies begin to seep with their preexisting intense hues. 

 

Lips would clash together in such force that the **collision** immediately takes their breaths away, as the _agglomerating_ caress of his sun-kissed skin grows _tenacious_ and _relentless_ as Mischa conducts the same, synchronized orchestration of her brother’s mingling form. Chilled air still clings onto her and it persists, just like her sweet essence, lingering in spaces that once filled him. Lulling her towards the bed as _coalesced_ forms  _scurry_ and _blur_ , Nigel gives a gentle push as the whirlwind paints their small, yet well-accommodated house. Their forms unfurl, the unspoken words that slip right between their lips tell one cohesive literature. They will sing and rejoice through the lighting eyes, as starlight scatters overhead. 

 

All the contained energy glitter with each brush of motion and they fall like the rain pouring down, washing over their skin through the penetrating beam that blurs their adhered form to be seen as an unified one. All force effortlessly comes without  _hesitation_ as the sensation becomes almost **unbearable** ; the new intensity streams forth through Nigel’s straddling movement as the mattress dips. With ease of the constricting fiber of his muscles, he accepts the **battle-cry** of his body, claiming and re-claiming her as his own. 

Through the hardships, the _triumphant_ feel would be much greater, in resounding multitudes. As if Mischa’s porcelain skin had been turning him, Nigel pushes Mischa’s shoulders through digging nails and a hard squeeze, a drop of sweat _temporarily_ blinding him as he does so. His own erection, entrapped without any give between their sandwiched planes of flat clothed skin, the velvety flap continues to egg on a production of sticky fluids, as he washes away the lingering unsettling feeling through his quiet smile.

 

Yet, he wants to savor this _lengthening_ moment like consuming a  **delectable** dish as he plants her with a sweeping **blaze** of kiss all over until Mischa squirmed beneath him. She was almost a slave to Nigel’s full and soft lips. Words would be lost except them being _serpentine_ , _sensual_ , _unique_ , and **out of this world**.  ****It’s like taking over the threshold of their physical boundary, Nigel’s steeling hunger presented in those _malleable_ , swollen lips as they urgently press the right buttons to let the senses detonate. A bit of rigidity soon melts away in **leniency** as his eagerness paints a stroke over Mischa’s jawline, breathing and thrumming with life.  

 

They’re not inexperienced adolescents who are openly exploring the uncharted territories. The _barracks_ had been claimed, the  **terrains** had been won and lost numerous times just like their fornications. He could not contain the surge of emotion that threatened to drown both of them as onslaughts of **provocation** washes over through his bristled skin as a cool whip of her breeze, her aura and scents _scintillate_ , claiming the very core of him in return. 

 

“Fucking beg, gorgeous, what do you want?” Nigel’s usual sultry smirk etches over his full lips as they dig into his cheek. “Strip, and undress me.” He frantically lifts his wrapped up arm to pull his shirt off over his head, not wanting to part from the unbridled air of carnal joy that continues to wash over his skin. Mischa falls in love with Nigel’s _pendulous_ touches, soft and gossamer, yet his calloused fingertips remain rough, tinging her revealed flesh with colors. The way he grabs her hands and pinning them as their tops come off, he pulls himself into Mischa’s chest. Eyes drawn together, such **anticipation** builds as he plunges into the deepest black hole as he holds the _privilege_. 

Nigel’s length is already rock hard and throbbing by the time Mischa eagerly rolls her hips, her soul consumed by his being and she was slowly losing herself, wide-eyed and clinging onto the taller form as she parts her legs. Spine arching gracefully and her luscious hair haloes and buries deep into the pillow, Her walls clench tight, even before Nigel slowly begins to stretch her as the pendulous movement continues; she’s trying to get out, but Nigel’s making it hard for her. A tug-of-war as words of unspoken  _appreciation_ rings against her flesh. _Mischa, Mischa, my dear Mischa._ The exquisite sensation when Nigel finally **penetrates** her, she’s singing aria upon Nigel’s jutting veins. He was the warm sweater she could wrap herself up, the potent hot apple cider that awoke her senses from the inside out and finally, the enchanting equinox that would leave her gasping breath as her skin manifests into a fiery foliage. She grew to love the friction of it. Nigel could give her exactly what she needs.

 

___

 

It had started with a simple promise. A kiss on the cheek, telling her to have a good day, and then a little whisper in her ear: _Look forward to coming home tonight._  And with a wink and the faintest smirk, he had ushered her off to the library, refusing to explain himself any further. Mischa had shaken her head in wonder, not bothering with his antics when she was already running late, yet nevertheless anticipating what he had in store for her upon her return home; he was a man of his word. Whatever he had in mind, it was sure to please her in one way or another.

 

_And it certainly had._

 

He had given her very little warning. She had walked in, and hardly set her purse down to say hello when he took her in his arms and kissed her. It was the  **hunger** present in the action that made this particular surprise-kiss stand out among the rest, almost immediately arousing her once the initial shock wore off. Backed against the wall, Mischa couldn’t move much, and she was perfectly okay with this. He was devouring her body before she even had a chance to take off her clothes. She gripped him tightly, nails digging into his back as she grunted and sighed against his open mouth, urging and guiding him to the places along her body that felt best against his eager hands.

 

Somehow along the way, they ended up in their shared bedroom, laughing and panting and fumbling through loose articles of clothing. Soon, she was _whining_ , practically begging for him to touch her _more and more and_ _ **more** , _moaning rather loudly when she found herself trapped between the bed and his hands. It was **bliss** and she was on fire, she was aiding him in undressing herself when he simply wasn’t going **fast**  enough, touching him everywhere her hands could reach as she fell back against the mass of pillows.

 

She forgot that they had neighbors, forgot that she wasn’t typically so _loud_  in bed with him, forgot that her day had been long and uneventful, and eventually felt she had simply forgotten her own name. Legs and arms wrapped around him, rendered silent aside from her frantic panting and heaving of her own body, only accompanied by the occasional whimper or jumble of delighted noise. When she felt _so desperately close,_  she gasped his name into his ear, mouth falling open into a soundless utterance of surrender.

___

Past all the written chapters of their previous copulatory acts, he now begins to pen the **addendum** of _amplification_ and _intense_ feeling as there resides a sea-jagged waves inside of him. His darkened hazel twinkles in the dim light of their apartment, now spilling with the vivid _illumination_ of oranges and reds, seeping to propel and fuse onto their mingling forms. He twists against her, growing more mischievous as he wants to see more parts of her that had been hidden beneath the layers. He wants to be lost in her **subjugation** ; nearly choking on it, as he splits her skin open with his sharp edges. With his lips clamped shut as he paints further with _flamboyant_ crimson, an **unbearable** energy erupts with a new intensity. 

 

In the monochromatic world, their **exuberance** seeps the _vivaciousness_ into the devoid of the colors of the past and this happiness had enabled him to move like the _ravenous_ animal. Growing **impatient** as he tumbles down as if caught in a strong gust of wind, his arms hook beneath her exposed thighs, as the urgency spills forth from his dilated hazel, dripping with brilliant sparks. Completely **entranced** , utterly silent yet loud at the same time. He slides one of his toned arms behind her neck, drawing her towards him as an ample time passes, as symphonies become measured cacophonies through his hardened nipples and erect penis. The pressure becomes explosive as he feels the slight contractions of her folds, exquisite on its own as he feels his own heart getting ripped out through the roof of his skull. 

 

Her now exposed breasts rests on his chest and his knees click into a place, as if piecing together a missing _puzzle_. The weight of his bones become ephemeral, completely weightless as his throbbing veins suspend in the air. His fueling chest exploding all over her as he overlaps her like two rose petals, emitting such sweetness as he collapses onto her into a puddle of skin. Sufficiently **animated** and eloquently _blossoming_ as his rhythmic movements become the sun-baked earth seeking the moisture. He sings softly in a chants, his goddess of beauty before him as an equal measure of **worship** and  _desiccation_ continues. 

 

He paints her with **celestial bodies** , morphing into her face as he drowns her in numerous hearts, nibbles and nuzzles. Each breath, each exhale, each quickened pace _agglomerating_ the heavy musk, balancing with the copious evidence of their erupting heat plaster them together as they _applause_. Every stroke drives his swollen and reddened lips to tremble imperceptibly as he  **incinerates** , enough to light an entire galaxy as he burns even brighter than before. A mantra of her name as the nearing vertigo clutches his drenched ashen locks. Like pressing down on the **accelerator** as the thickened air around him _intersperse_ with moaning and breathless pants. He shuddered as the flaring energy eggs on a gasp of pain as he falls as if _swooning_ into her embrace. 


	62. Chapter 62

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Durere și Memorie || A Disposition of a Bravado
> 
> { Pain and Memory in Romanian }

I cried tears made of salt,   
blood, bones and our memories.   
The honey, endless _arias_ and _serenades_  within my veinshad **coagulated** ,  
turned into sheets of ice and shattered 

as it attracted maggots and festering wounds   
as my ego met its death.   
_Wasn’t it already infused with my bone marrow and  
__gave me something entirely else than the **fucking** love? _

The mantras of my cold, impassive animosity littered my existence   
as the electrical pulses within me had fired so quickly,   
the **supernova** of my thoughts would cloud me in a funnel   
as I stand amidst the obsidian night.

The vehement hazel trailing over the ephemeral strokes of city night,  
I feel pain made of bullets, daggers and   
charred hole within my heart as I could feel the wound gape.   
The **proximity** means nothing when I feel the space between

**Us.**

_embodying_ light years away,   
**occult** and _magical forces of the world  
__had driven us afar._  
I grieve sorrow made of 

impassive _sheet of steel_  
_emptiness_ ,   
_solitude_  
and _my loss_

in both **determination** and   
the turmoiled _delirium_ ,  
I would feel it ‘ _til  
my last damned breath._  


	63. Chapter 63

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A Sordid Survivor || A Disposition of a Bravado
> 
> Nigel as a brawler.

Some crude graffiti, continues to leak in **tormentation** ,   
through the self-deprecating burden   
he would rather die on his feet than live on his knees  
 _but was he a fucking tribute to those more morally wicked?_  
as he plummets from the roof of the high-rise building   
his hardened flesh, a suit of chained armor   
now linked with hundreds of iron scales   
leaves him out in the _undefendable_ earth  
his brain dashed out against the ground   
then picks himself up, briskly  
concurrently refueling and breaking  
swelled anger filling the expanse of his skin as  
sometimes he’s the flagellating martyr   
as another layer of dream unpeels through crimson discharge   
more often he’s fearless and ruthless soldier   
sufficiently using the weight of an enormous fireball   
bearing down upon his body   
to become impermeable outlines   
in the quiet corners of his conscious mind   
 _memories are waiting_ ; not the usual nightmares,   
the ethereal muscle memory of fluid,   
the ever-unperturbed sea   
as sleep grows thin, becoming brittle and crumbling away  
through knotted strands of muscles,   
ashen nights without celestial bodies   
muddy sweat drops becoming diamonds among the coal   
gritting out through clenched teeth   
 _he’s sorry he fucked up_ , exhausted   
and the graveness of **consequential** actions are overwhelming   
and he’s still happy, a _calmness_ in him in the midst of hellfire   
that will fail to **extinguish**    
even within such vulnerable state   
of pendulous barren walls of his castle full of hatred   
hence another attempt to break that wall down  
then he’ll _breathe_ and set himself **free**. 


	64. Chapter 64

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Demon of Devotion || A Disposition of a Bravado
> 
> Nigel x Mischa, inspired by Frigid Landscape thread.

his only rationale is for him to be an expendable in unending war  
as an indispensable and irreplaceable being,   
he would pay his utmost allegiance to _her_  alone and  
shed more **carnage** than the adversaries who deemed him _bloodthirsty_.  

fingers poised like _scythes,_  his indistinguishable ember bear down   
in **splitting** , endless arterial spray splatters   
screams of agony and the continuous stream of blood  
becomes a **celebration**  

his hardened skin, caressed with layers of caked, rusty tang of blood  
it’s his _rejuvenating_ **potion** ,   
the _elixir_ to all the accumulated injuries he had sustained   
and the _source_ and fluttering  _core_ of his burning fire, 

the sole reason of his **creation**.   
With **solemn devotion**  and _undying persistence_  
his body becomes littered with battle scars,   
contusions, gashes and stab wounds 

Standing tall in the midst of another **massacre**    
 _desecration_ upon the corpses.   
tarnished with pink _viscera_ and stomach-retching fluids   
pungent and toxic like ominous fog

the familiar puddle of black opal-like blood   
pitch-black as his _tainted_ soul,   
once his conducive **annihilation** is done and over with,  
the paradoxical sun beats down 

upon his blood saturated ashen locks,   
falling over those _trenchant_ orbs.   
the injuries will **regenerate** , myriads of scar tissues   
layered upon his battle-tested skin. 

Feeling the _irresistible_ force propelling him upward,   
more anger **unleashes** as he feasts upon copious amount of blood.   
His _weapon_ , steady as a menacing smirk curves his lips,   
he expects a **barren** and **destitute** world as this after she is gone. 


	65. Chapter 65

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gyvenimas Ir Mirtis || A disposition of a Bravado
> 
> *Life and Death in Lithuanian.

a ticking clockwork   
ink drops  
becomes undulating glasswork  
stretching, expanding   
nothing left to **contingency**    
the _uncertainty_ , impetus to his inquiry   
a total cessation of all vital functions   
a continuous **clangor** exhibits _resonance_  
the star-studded sky rustles and slants  
as the world tips over to relinquish from his grasp  
the sickle moon no longer casts light upon him   
 _no more drops of liquor_  
the dulcet debauchery of **exquisite intoxication**  
 _no more sticks of cigarettes_  
the bitter dance of **everlasting inure**  
 _no more riding at night_  
the exhilarating divineness of **enlivening incitement**  
his **disintegration** , **deconstruction** , **decomposing**    
until his lungs pump its last air   
through his **revival** , **resurgence** and **rejuvenation**. 


	66. Chapter 66

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Each Passing Day || A Disposition of a Bravado

fragile ribs flutter and contract, failing to extend   
the love and heart and soul change hands   
as condensed teardrop etches corrosive acid   
upon the dreary yielding of his _fate_  

his mind is racing, yet the salt drips linger   
upon the empty lips without residing soul   
the darkness is here, quietly observing   
upon strewn limbs and woeful sorrowness 

 **fostered submission** , along with change of heart   
the _temptation_ awaits, the battle rages in   
prospect of _unequivocal triumph_  
the art of shattering a heart 

 _wax lyricism_ , consumed with words   
reserved dedication coursing through his veins   
in the face of the most exquisite suffering   
as his mind laces with her _lavish bedazzlement_

 **an untamed beast** longs to roam free  
mark its territories, fill the void with the light of her fire   
but he is a _caged eaglet_ with shackled wings   
a **wanderer** without a destination, filling his days with dreams 

muted of his resounding desire to explore   
through the _wicked wild wind_ ; all and everything   
a risky undertaking with Russian roulette   
as his life hangs by a thread

memories become _ashes_ , **scrubs** his skin raw,   
through benumbed pain and ejecting spillage   
 _the clock is ticking_ , another day is unraveling.   
and it is another glorious day at **limbo**  

as he brands himself of the day that he would rise   
like the golden haze of break of dawn,  
it sticks onto his eyelashes, contours down his vehement gaze  
yet another _farewell_ , another **goodbye**  

upon immeasurable depth of his love   
comes crashing in,  
sweeps him whole, leaving a smile.   
 _Will you give me the last smile?_


	67. Chapter 67

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Smoking Gun || A Disposition of a Bravado
> 
> Nigel x Gabi

_**The clock ticks** _

_didn’t we withstand the test of time?_  
time is only an illusion  
when it comes to my ruinous addiction  
of its grave and fatal importance 

it benumbs the senses   
and feeds my beastly soul   
in fire and blood   
graphite dusts and luminescence 

you have reclaimed my wretched soul   
as I faced uncharted coordinates   
as stars like footprints of my lost steps   
spreading the embers through the veins 

 _didn’t I scatter blooming petals_  
all over the bosom of your alabaster, immaculate flush   
transforming into a vessel of   
ever lasting love of constellations? 

souls forge and soldered through verticals of my ribs   
Icarus soaring, my sunflower to your sun   
fingertips diffuse, nerves sing an cacophonous aria   
as world ceases to dwell 

put yourself through me as I see myself   
for I have transcribed my love down your spine   
etching like thunderstorm, feverish and fervent as  
irrevocable event horizon swallows me whole 

ah, **_darling_** , the only explanation  
I could offer for my exhibited behavior   
is that I am   
utterly _condemned_ and _conquered_ by the erosion, that is **you**. 


	68. Chapter 68

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shattered Heart, Fragmented Dream || A Disposition of a Bravado 
> 
> After watching Charlie Countryman, Nigel x Gabi.

I thirst for your imprints of hearts,   
the world so quiet, yet the thrum never shuts up   
the **love illumination** lighting the darkness   
as it entices me in a paroxysmal euphoria 

in **complaisance** as I reduce down   
into fragments of stardusts   
that little spark of excitement   
slowly draining in a _torpor-ridden orbs_

I thirst for your trudging of footsteps,  
in the world full of _violence_ and _menace_    
budding bruise-blue streaks with gusto   
continuous **masterstrokes** of aches and throbs 

the dripping wax become the blasted holes   
bleeding ocean full of a loaded revolver   
I tiptoe to touch the sky, _plummeting_ down to my grave   
before our last **farewell**  

I thirst for your blossoming folds, compulsively so   
an **escapism** from encroached calmness   
you build muscles like bricks, held up by   
a fine cement of fueling _contentment_  

static blood electrifies through the veins   
color of steel, faded color  
transcribed with motoring notes, become  
outstretched hands of _morning sunlight_

I thirst for drugs, revving me up in **jubilant tenacity**  
and time-honored cadence of steel in a storm   
I thirst to entangle my fingers into your hair   
for no downer could abate this _predicament_ and 

drown the **uncertainty**    
what used to be the warmth of crackling embers   
that burn with an exquisite heat   
within my soul 

I gave you a **choice** , relinquished my control  
and you drew back the black curtains   
the illusion of my _shattered dreams_  
my heart pulverizes in pieces in sadness 

the **black parade** is upon me   
as I lay in a _masquerade_ of array of roses   
as red as bloodstained tip of spear   
 _handsome_ and _cruel_ , 

the world sings the sweet serenade of home   
no _tears_ and _lamentations_ , **darling**  
it is a house, as well as a dream,   
looked through my r _ose-colored glasses._


	69. Chapter 69

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Concupiscent Delight || A Disposition of a Bravado
> 
> Nigel x Gabi and Nigel x Mischa.

dazzled as if bombarded with concentrated ray of spotlight,   
no _sunlight_ or the tranquil _radiance_ of star-studded night would match   
its **ardor** , the power of renunciation   
ensorcelled by protruded collarbones, her plump breasts,   
slender and elongated, visible ribcage the perfect puzzle beneath  
his splayed coppery fingers, their position remains  
 **congruously** sexual, charged hazel sweeps clean  
no superfluity left as it had been whittled away   
alabaster flushing, blossoming upon her concave stomach   
as a thrilling energy transfers and flows out   
in a rhythmic ripple, _proportionally_ growing as he descends   
a clashing hook of wave, collects on the tip of his tongue   
like a wide flat brush, an immediate reaction   
involuntary tremulous quivering of flesh and muscles   
an endless **symphony** conducts in his head, her reciprocated  
melody echoing his name as it etches within his soul.   
 _sweetly, softly_ and _deeply_ , implanting words of life.  
 **Nigel** , oh my _darling_ **Nigel**.   
becomes lashing rain and thunder across her skin.  
a mysterious witch had him under an inescapable spell   
as all thoughts of her unfurls like filming gone out of his head   
as the sunlight gradually fails, the warmth replaces quickly,   
she becomes an _emblem_ and a relic upon his **possessive** grasp   
as fingers round upon the dimple of her taut spine,   
locked in paroxysm as the shadows _contour_ and _hollow_ above   
her protruding collarbones,   
electrifyingly charged hazel   
collides upon her blue-gray   
he sketches her like a croquis   
 _sensual, determined, unhesitant_ and with exuding **magnetism**    
endless exchanges of tingling caress, heartbeats in unison,   
they’re levitating together in coalesced mess,   
until the aria reaches its zenith, in charged _staccato_ , fevered _zeal_ ,   
 **trembling, sweating,**  
the vast unperturbed ocean,   
now becomes current and unexplorable to his waking mind.   
he would rip the north star and embed it within his heart   
so that he could burst in blinding _illumination_  
forever her anchor, his **siren**. 


	70. Chapter 70

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Liquid Lyricism || A Disposition of a Bravado

**12am.** the _coldest_ and _unfathomable_ gray there is wafts into him  
along with the fuzzy whispers of dark suspicions  
a wet breath of air that clings to the streets  
and fibers of his clothes as it splits him open

with the vanished overhanging sun still clutched beneath the hazel  
it swirls as he embodies the swelling moon  
the sheltering clouds _accumulate_ within him  
as brittle ribs threaten to expand and crack

 **12:24am**. drops of corrosive acid _outnumber_ him, _surround_ him   
as they stretch, melt and expand. swelling beyond   
 _perceivable_ and _accommodative_    
the world tips over, as hourglass slants 

the indispensable undertaking of unsatisfactory dilatoriness   
an unprecedented raging battle _ravages_ through the crevice   
of his _affliction_ , ebbing and flowing in   
all in its cunning shrewdness 

 **12:43am.** infernal swirls, rising from the ground to   
free reins, _flaggerating_ and _lacerating_ his insides  
as they run back into his dreams  
and reminding him just how impossible it would be

to _liberate_ himself from the whirls and twirls of continuous currents  
as if he had been drunken off his head and wobbling the winter streets.  
the sense of time warps and as the the truth pierces into his skin   
they are forged shrapnels, chasmic and detrimental 

 **12:57am**. guarded by the denseness   
as it sneaks within his brain like demons in his mind   
trying to strip off all the fastened hope.  
his halo is _kindling, exhausting, shrinking, severing_

no more thundering _roars_ , electric _sparks_ , generated _currents_    
a terrific midnight city walk, vicious roar beneath him,  
whirl of smoke singing in his veins,   
the ink drops drenched in blossoming petals blanket him. 

but it isn’t the submissive acceptance   
though moisture fills his ears   
and dread fills the chamber of his lungs   
the punctuated moment becomes indistinguishable 

 **1:09am**. with a crooked smile and calloused hands   
the words become rough shards from his tongue   
as basilisk stare encompasses the world   
as his form engulfs the wave of _pain_ , blessed _interference_  

of the demons as the uncomfortable numbness   
finally quells to cease   
the scarred lionheart finally sleeps   
as the unspoken emotion sends shivers down his spine. 

his fingers are _idle_ , muted words _bleed out_  
strings of thoughts had been entangled beyond _reprimand_    
his soul had been _trapped_ , but   
tonight, they _roam_ _wild and free_ **,** so let him fucking _speak_. 


	71. Chapter 71

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nigel x Mischa || Post - Frigid Landscape. Nigel as a brawler.

A dazzling radiance unfurls in front of him like a tapestry, spilled forth like a waterfall. Stars like diamonds, scattered through the quenching stream of early evening as a crimson yarn unpools. _His blood_ , drawing ribbons through the  _cerulean_ expanse of the medical tent; the imminent punishment upon his valiant, yet failed attempt at liberating himself. **Dead inside** , shutting off the whole world as he _burned out._ More often he had wished he could fade away like a whirling smoke. His veins sung a dream of **freedom**. Not even the  _daybreak_ , being a shackled slave to such raw and carnal act of watching his bare knuckles scrape and flay was enough to unleash the pent-up frustration that agglomerated like the tower of Babel. A caged eaglet with broken wings, fueled by rage as he forges ahead each single day. The flickering fire became an embodiment of himself, the immeasurable scalding blue taking over his fundamental hue. 

His tear, contouring through the split ends of his lips is briny, the veins coarser than grains of sand. His bulging and swollen eyes make out the world with crimson filter as he intoxicates upon the stale metallic tang; of his blood in varying stages of coagulation. The unforgiving heat turns his tangibility inside out, with festering wounds, widening with each effortful exhale. His diaphragm squeezes and distorts, with a pang of pain intoxicating his fuzzy brain. 

As the nightfall blankets upon his strewn limbs as the potent scent of rubbing alcohol stings through the brittle bones, he slips into a realm between consciousness and oblivion. 

~~

_It is human nature to always want more_ , more array, varying sensations. Something other than the wretchedness and desolate fissure upon his hardened flesh. 

And through the whistling, caressing wind, his dormant sense electrifies. Such familiarity becomes an onslaught of memories, reeling like film. Through diaphanous hazel, tinged with saltiness, he still obsesses and feels Mischa’s presence upon an arm’s distance. 

_Was he dreaming, or was this a mere eye’s trick upon his cruel, predestined fate?_

Motionless fingertips reach for tenacious strand of memory, refusing to be faded over time. 


	72. Chapter 72

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Slipped Time || A Disposition of a Bravado
> 
> Nigel x Mischa

scathing and contrasting,   
scintillating in the apotheosis of suffering,  
memories become coarser than a sheet of rough sandpaper   
and _atmospheric_ ; gush of winds that touched his soul,   
becomes a scorching sun directly overhead 

that would burn through the sunbaked earth   
as a hurricane ripping through the depth of his emotions.   
those were altered, distorted and faded   
the distinct boundaries muddled and blurred, they are the   
quintessentially the ugly pastiche of his lurid, maverick unfurling.

and the undetachable association of his injuries and scars,   
as they become the ocean tides,   
rising and falling around his corporeality.   
assume the posture of stiffening cement  
the world will crush him until he cracks 

Mischa had been the construction of atomic proportions in his mind,   
she would forever make him to bleed an ocean of his sanity  
maxims of his uncharacteristic obsequiousness.   
her presence and virtue had crawled in such a slow manner,   
but they lingered as they seeped into his soul.  

_Unbreakable and stubborn, even with the test of time,  
_ _more than a penchant for repeating through his damned life  
_ _the dichotomy of everything.  
_ _he will remember their words, touch, dreams, hopes and sighs  
_ _their place upon the world as they pass each other, fleetingly_

Time could warp and distort, iron-clad facade becomes such a fictitious tale  
let the emptiness fill instead of the heat of the acid tears   
Mischa didn’t intend her life to be severed away from the protective brothers   
who grew in defiance of fear and the hazard of the world  
Something wondrous and magical, supposedly.


	73. Chapter 73

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nigel x Mischa, Léon AU, deep kiss meme.

A permutation, both in the encompassing aura which they both reside and casting their luminescent lights upon each other as they bathe in a fresh layer of sanguine blood, all he could manage to see is Mischa’s fragile form. The continuous gossip between their pressed body sings with renewed unification as his thumb contours through her side; featherlight strokes, defining her sensual curves. Starting with her handsome forehead, trailing beneath her damp locks and wiping off the assailant's’ blood in the process. All the accumulated memories unfurl like a reeled film as he recalls their every afternoon routine. He would get up without an alarm at almost exactly the same time, Mischa would come back from the grocery store with all the necessary ingredients for his smoothie, take a stroll with his dachshund named Twinkle. By the time she stepped into their little clandestine residence, he would be drenched in sweat, with a thousand sit-ups completed and ravenously hungry, with a faint curl of smile stretching from cheek to cheek upon her humming footsteps. 

Now they had been together for a quite a while, bonding in the most maverick and wayward manner as he would proudly flaunt her in some of his less jeopardizing jobs. Mischa would circle around him, checking as if his all-black clad form, effectively hidden beneath the contouring shadow upon the window’s edge would be bruised, scraped and gashed. After making their quick getaway and hiding behind a huge lorry perched across the sidewalk, where closed-off construction site had been eerily trailing them with such potency, as if their lives would crumble, it would crumble atop of them in a demolition. 

But no, he would protect his favorite flower upon the desolate and barren earth, no matter what it takes. He wonders if he could ever reside fully within her heart, as she does his now. Every look he peers upon her, he wishes he could be consumed by her blinding light, upon his woeful darkness. Even when he’s overwhelmed by the opalescence black of tainted blood, his heart shatters in a million pieces and the gloom aura engulfs him whole, he would be her dark night upon the wretched world full of adversaries. Entrapping her beneath his heat and advancing without a hesitation, he burrows into her gentle profile, molding himself into her in whole as charged breath propels through his windpipe. No more afraid he would ever lose someone that owns his heart in a shackle, and utterly in love. Together they seem to concoct a miracle, as he feels her breath in his face as he pulls her closer, arms tightly wrapped around her tiny face as his broad hand penetrates upon her own scars, mending them entirely. 


	74. Chapter 74

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nigel x Clarice.

The thrumming music turns whiplash against his electrified heart, as the music itself bestows such limerence undeserving for such an untamed creature. The same DJ he had hired years ago, were still synthesizing music that gave off too much likeness of the time when he had been locked in the threshold of Gabi’s featherlight caress, turning firmer along with the height of the music. The vibrancy of her fingertips, sending a pulsating rush of energy through him as she continues to ensorcell him with unfathomable depth of her charm. Magnetic jet black of her eyelids, along with the contrasting porcelain skin of hers, clad in elegant dark jade green wrap dress accompany him like his Persephone amidst his pitch-black charcoal suit. He’s dissipating within the fluttering slant of penumbra, while she’s embodying all the accumulation of lights, absent from his blackened heart. 

But today, no music would penetrate through his soul and consciousness, which strips him away from attaining the divine rapturous he had perceived upon the threading notes and tunes. No immeasurable stretch of time and space, nothing to lean his tired form against, as sonorous undulation would’ve already painted a milky way upon his direction. Of course, as an undercover, he couldn’t make Clarice into one of those skank girls who fed off on arrogant executives and mere adrenaline junkies likewise; she deserved his special protection and that’s why she had been dispatched to the private suites, where sections were divided off and booths aligned the vast corridor, tucked away from the hubbub of the dance floor. 

The bartender had been courteous and quick-witted enough to read upon Nigel’s mind; at least partially. He’s occupying the nearest booth with the partitioned glass screens, overlooking the counter bar where an accumulated throng of youngsters exchanging moneys with their choices of poison to reboot themselves for another round of chemical-fueled discharge. 

And he’s well-perceptive of the glances, turning into stares as he masks his constitution, riddled with both torpor and weary conscience as he lengthens his ticking clock another minute longer. Through that extraordinarily explosive rhythm of whizzes and whooshes as potent cocktail courses through his bloodstream, he would be winded and desperate beneath the easygoing deception of his eased form, splayed forth, encompassing the whole couch. Arm draped loosely over the backrest, his form is slanting, taking two cushions at once as legs drape, crossed over as usual with sunken, intense stare of the basilisk. 

It might be the devilish filter of the alcohol doing it for him, yet the pitch-black darkness among the rhapsodical incitement of illuminations overhead fuzzes over; a lost stretch of time, along with accumulated bottles of energy drink that makes his lassitude heart sintillate with caffeine overdose. In his befuddled incoherence of his peripheral view, Clarice’s clicking high heels immediately pluck himself out from the reverie to reality; and he’s transfixed within that place and potent surge of emotion. 

“Nothing out of sorts with your required presence,” shifting a bit to accommodate an added figure of the loveseat, his diaphanous hazel brims with both inquietude and tranquility. “Mm, go to my flat, we’ll eliminate one unnecessary movement.” He’s immediately tamed beneath the featherlight touch of her and they’re immediately on the same ship. His words still carry that air of authoritativeness and unmatched gallantry that becomes a rarity. Flesh warm and tingly as his lacking focus makes her feature to be scattered. “I’ll bring the most delectible samale you have ever graced your tastebuds.” 


	75. Chapter 75

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nigel x Mischa, Léon the Professional AU.

With the embodiment of the twilight in the forest as golden, fiery spillage of illumination spills forth the contours of wavering, distorted silhouettes, Nigel’s eyes seem to touch everywhere. Getting high beneath the miasmic, stale smoke and honeyed sweetness of the whiskey still clinging onto his lips as does Mischa’s malleable lips, the percussions of the electrifying music turns into high-voltage, shimmering and sparkling as his coppery skin etches with dramatic chiaroscuro. Since watching Gabi’s form slip away from his grasp and gazing into the violent slam of her body, instead of his own, he hadn’t ever dared to step into such a thriving atmosphere breathing and expanding like a beast’s heart; he would feel consumed, devoured and spat whole, never be able to step into the uncharted den, as his chest would burn through with the exhaustive thread of treasured memories. 

_Yet_ , he’s watching the same old story recurring beneath his fingertips as he holds Mischa between his arms, as flamboyant lights and cigarette smokes whirl past him with a touch of his past. His dark, caved eyes become enigmatic and he could feel his heart break; not because he realizes Mischa isn’t Gabi, but knowing her presence overrides those exquisitely blissful memories and the desire to kiss her with such intensity brims. His body aches and the worst part is that he registers her body gesture, too. Through those jewel sparkles as he becomes the master jeweler who would polish and revel her whole, _he knows she wants to kiss him, too._

She looks so beautiful tonight; perhaps not in the conventional sense, as she still bears both the rawness and unconventional beauty with her chopped hair and porcelain beauty, that could only to be matched with wind-induced sway of her open movements, which become the porous whispers through the walls of the dance floor. She’s the drug that he clutches with all his might, the painkiller upon the grief he had been bearing all too long. The night would wear on and hubbub of the crowds would soon die and drift away from his presence, yet through his dilapidated heart, her essentiality would come in like the sweet conversation that they had upon so many times. And the living memory of that becomes simply intoxicating. He’s already drunk and stumbling upon her and a drop of an oscillating tear becomes a constant, and it drives the weight of his darkness away. 

And the contours of his profile melts into her, along with such charged emotion, scalding against the aquiline feature of him in such an impression. Standing strong, yet slightly broken. He never had thought Mischa could crack him open and fill him with the drained void of his wilted life upon his vessel. Never aimlessly drifting, detached and longing, for he looks upon her in long moment as they part. Just like when they had whispered deep conversations while walking down the alleyways, muttering words of both a caressing touch and a destruction; the magic of her gaze, as his naked soul and vulnerability against her resilience, upon the world full of grief. 

_For he is a warrior and she is his medic._


	76. Chapter 76

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by my short 10k drabble titled Beneath Our Skins.   
> Nigel x Kaecilius.

Hear the screams within the void, as you surge through my brain and bloodstream, capturing all the senses. I yearn to lean forward and trace your outline with my fingertip, memorize the minute flutter upon our close proximity and sketch out all the emotions by the walls like hand-picked, chosen photographs. I want to splay open your ribcage, watch the trace of my dazzling hazel dance across your skeleton and hear the whooshing of your blood in your veins and thoughts reverberate through your cranium. Thrust your vehement gaze that would crack and morph through dimensions, as something akin to the rush of the night cars ensorcell me as a threading force becomes vaguely metallic.

 

My own would in return, morphing into a memory full of you, a whirlwind of lines and planes and merging muscles. How is it that you’re the only one who knows to make my blood both calm and bubble over? And cause my eyes to slide back to my brain and be intoxicated in the memory of your lips pressed against my collarbone as my mind empties? Driving me over the edge of what seems so ephemeral and empty and overtaking me beyond the realm of disguise, to plunge down the flutter of shared emotions.

 

They continue accumulating to ever-rising high tide; meeting the vigor in life. You’ll never know how much I owe you, for you impede my ability to write anything other than what’s coherent and intelligible upon the expanse of your skin. By the time I’m able to concoct such syllables worth of etchings and gnawing bite marks, you’ll take me on a life’s apprenticeship where we would labor through our inflictions and transmorph the massive absence of our presences of beloved as the unfurled memories would become the lush forest within us. As they disintegrate, such ingenuous emotions would reveal the depth of our suppressed energies, in its simplicity.

 

Would we able to transmorph those memories, which are worse than poisonous darts prickling away our blackened hearts as unspoken words wander around like migratory birds who had somehow lost their way home? We both are confused and forsaken souls, treading beneath the celestial bodies as they become studded within our unfathomable basilisk gaze. Here we are, begging and craving for the love worth an uphill battle as we chase the milky way full of embedded stars. Like the prisoners of war awaiting years for amnesty.

 

The shimmer in our eyes tell that the universe is ours to take and there’s nothing else to pursue, except shattering our infarction as we expand our being into midnight shouts and revelry. Like the carousing crowds in celebration, we would see the overhead sun and our convoluted minds would unfurl and be overtaken by every aspect of our growing strength.


	77. Chapter 77

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kaecilius' answer to anon's question, "Does the Scarlet Witch scare you?"

He was very well accustomed to the leaking torment of crude graffiti coursing through him to be the most burdensome and irritatingly fickle thing. Useless to say, they become self-deprecating and eventually morphs into being a **tribunal trophy** that would fortify him further. They become his own permanent carapace, his own sanctuary upon white-hot fury that would engulf him in whole. Numerous kisses of unforgiving earth and unpooling ribbons that would seep through his epidermal. Brain dashed off to the ground, enrapturing him in befuddled blur; more like a dense fog he cannot dissipate through the web of his fingers before it briskly disappears once he refuels himself with the swelling anger. Unless he’s completely plunging in the valley full of icy, cold mountain air that turns prickling pins and needles, the fury itself feels more like a prominence of his throbbing pulse, much like the one he’d experience during a runner’s high. 

It’s not of the unwavering gaze that exaggerates the tension between his slatted ribcage as recurrent nightmare becomes such fixated habituation. So much hope for the future and his life with his beloved having shattered in fragments. A **crack** widened to a **fault** , then he’s suddenly blinded by those shards and all of his unrealized abilities ricochet to him like a **disgrace**. He isn’t good enough, _A **dishonor** upon his rebuilding and resurgence. _

_Sins of omission, becoming concurrent slaps upon his face._

The abysmal hazel hones as bitter-stricken facade furrows. “No, as long as the hopes of my new dream and I don’t wake up with the tears and fluids from my recurring nightmares, not a single damned thing instills fear in me.” He knows none of this will stay forever and even if this breaks his hearts, he has to prevent himself from crumbling away and be that fearless and ruthless zealot upon the earth. Retain that eternal muscle memory of fluid and sweat and tears to thrive and those consequential actions would prove him greater than any other individuals on this wretched Earth.  


	78. Chapter 78

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nigel x Clarice.

It’s never an inherent trait of his, that his attention diverts so much _away_ from her. One moment, his whiskey hazel hovers over like a drone, drawing a panoramic arch over the bar counter, because that’s where the most sticky situations happen. Of course, there are bouncers who he hired and paid to take care of those mishaps, _yet_ , the power of an iron fist held even more potency when his name had been involved. Even when she’s clasped around his protective embrace, it compromises him from giving her the hundred percent that she deserves. And he knows that, he’s placing whatever thousand labels he could with the unknown surge of faces, so that he could be more vigilant in his own brand of quality control. He couldn’t let anything like the previous encounter slide by his book, though people could be never categorized or defined by one sentence, or a label for that matter. A thousand little things make up an individual and though sometimes it’s effective, _how could he ever shove people into the corresponding boxes and let them take all the interest away from him?_

He’s so used to acting out in jealousy and possessiveness, didn’t he discreetly have his ears on the ground whenever Clarice had been involved with the clients, _high-profile or not?_ Even more often, he had faked indifference in order to be more fickle and jarring, overstimulated beyond reprieve. And now he’s facing his own dose of medicine and he willingly burns in her darkened gem. He’s at the end of her projectiles and she thrives so much, brimming with the anger surging out of those outstretched arms. Her clashing kiss is quite expected, yet still, the mere rush and blur of the sensation is enough to knock him backward a few steps and be petrified in that very moment. As if he had been choked back, sending something deep into his chest as he resists. Resists that damn fucking urge to turn his fingers into scythes, pivot and pin her beneath his weight to drag his greedy hands over the thin fabric of her dress and the bare skin underneath it. Her skin already feels like a bundle of coal, hot and radiant. 

If he could ever translate that language, it’s voracious lust, burning away as her nails leave continuous marks upon his throbbing veins and he might bleed. He’s already bruising as her teeth digs into his lower lip as a rush of metallic flare overwhelms his mouth, along with the charged heat, melting her sweetness into burnt caramel. He could still taste the citrus hint of the cocktail they shared together. And he’s fraying apart beneath her grasp, as ashen locks pull in every possible direction and his palms aflame with the equal intensity of her, branding against her alabaster expanse as his attention turns into adoration. Kindled with sparks and lightnings as he grounds himself against the wall behind him, with a bated breath as his heart trampolines beneath his ribcage, threatening to eject, he barely catches enough breath to utter something before unclasping Clarice’s bra hooks. “Undress me.”  


	79. Chapter 79

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nigel x Clarice, nsfw.

Completely enraptured with his vehement task of clearing the piles of paperwork accumulated on his messy desk, he doesn’t even bat an eyelash and look up from the whirlpool of his undoing as Clarice slips inside with her usual wear. She had such innate **gracefulness** which had been such a rarity upon his throng of scantily dressed and glitter-covered girls that couldn’t be simply robbed away from her, even in her sparkly bedazzlement of cling-wrap dress and stiletto heels. Form-fitting, hugging every minute curve and dip of her petite form as it encases all of her most desirable assets, she certainly looks and feels like fleeting euphoria dissipating into the beautiful star-studded night outside from his short grasp. 

Staring into the huge screen too close from his proximity as fingers frantically move about, the lingering silence becomes **unsettling** , even sinking as he futilely drives it away with a guzzle of whiskey on the rock. The irritation accumulates in the form of a dull ache behind his eye sockets, becoming throbbing by the passing minute as a deep exhale, rattles his ribcage as his head dips. He had already spent most of the grueling long day plastered and locked in his body and everything seemed to turn gray by the passing minute, as if the light had been gone out. 

Oblivious to her movements as he records everything from his spine-cracked ledger full of his usual illegible, cursive scrawls onto the excel sheet, he feels a sudden, abrupt rush of flaring sensation through his core as he feels her inner arm press against his side. Crawling creak of the beat-down leather chair defiantly protests to move, yet his body completes its full circuit in overwhelming **inexpressibility**. In that very moment, he’s the weightless foam of the stirring ocean as traversing warmth _agglomerates_ , as its latent energy ejects out to become much more thrilling, cascading to pour out of him in a surge of wildfire. 

Wordlessly, he perceives the little empty space between their pressed forms, which soon closes in and his greedy fingers close around her tiny wrist as a continuous ripple become overwhelmingly _electric_. Knotted muscles unfurl beneath her and he’s reducing into a puddle, slowly yet surely, as he drowns in a cascade of Clarice’s blonde waterfall. He could already feel the intense hue seep through his lower half and his innate warmth persists; like the rising tide of break of dawn as his pulsating pulse eggs on to advance. Finally ascending his gaze to revel at her impeccable frame, he’s surging in for a tender kiss, deepening into the realm of a _frenzied_ state of hunger. Not the subtle ones that wouldn’t leave him utterly breathless, as he claims her in whole, as he awaits the **reciprocation**.  


	80. Chapter 80

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kaecilius' answer to Wanda's "I'd totally fuck you."

A welled-up, peculiar emotion pours over his form, shining with absolute sincerity as the web of his finger curves over the instrument of both his destruction and a clutch for stability. His dual-wielding scythe etches with a serene orange glow as the calming scents of incense whirls upon his utilitarian Avengers quarter with dripping wax drops from the candle. Therapeutic and aromatic, his deep inhale through his nostrils that would surely get him to float upon the tranquil surface of unperturbed ocean as he visualizes such exquisite memory of Adria and himself locked in arms, and the world begins to whorl then. The beauty of all elaboration and eloquence is simply unmatched as his crude lips mold against his beloved’s lips, as their breaths coalesce and he’s locked in a dizzying intoxication he hadn’t been blessed before, and he feels the drenching sun melt onto their unification. She’s the one who calms such untamed creature like himself and though he believes he had compartmentalized all the complicated feelings for her, they never disappear as he had archived them down, just like how he would with his retained knowledge. 

Wanda’s words immediately make him to crash to a stop at the red light and he could hear his whirling astral body screech to a halt upon particularly stifling and dry summer night. His breath catches within the chambers of his diaphragm and his heartbeat stumbles towards the earth, just forward where he’s sitting cross-legged. His projection winds and weaves around his motionless form and lay over him like a net. He seldom gets interrupted like this, not in this blasphemous way, but he has to admit, deep down, the thought had crossed his mind and his lungs are now working frantically to pull the escaping air back to him. As if that had been the only sensation he could draw his concentration upon. “And since which point in time have you exactly gotten the idea to ‘fuck me’?” A genuine curiousness, as his caved almond eyes lifts up an arch, in his usual prodding penetrative intensity. The trailing smoke becomes tumultuous within the recess of his mind and the stars seem to shimmer even more so bright overhead. 

He doesn’t know how she had managed to instill a spot of illumination within him, but it seems to agglomerate in epic proportions as it becomes deep in hue, steadily glowing as his eyelashes flutter. _Might as well as he let it **happen** , trying wouldn’t hurt, would it? _He had been already through the symphony of pain and had been broken into individual fragments. His training had shaped him further and driven such wreaking havoc behind the recess of his mind, for now. Call it as a gravitational force upon two giant weapons of war to meet in that very fateful day at the conclave, and he could finally feel his heart pounding in his ears in its genuine eagerness. His meditational rhythms might have already been disrupted, so until the rightful notes strikes within his brain, he would have to let his mind swirl and face the inevitable. How it would happen, he has no clue. 


	81. Chapter 81

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kaecilius x Kaecilius fuck? Sign me the fuck up.

He’s driving through the headlighted highways, blazing through books after books on _reversing_ time, the concept of time itself, the **damned** time as it becomes all _relative_. Never a single moment could be stored and archived in rightful order and memories were fading. Never had he been so reckless, fearless, relentless and liberated when it came to his beloved Adria and his quest to strengthen those recollections as his reminiscence would drive him further onto reaching greatness. Completely _encompassed_ within the piled-up tomes in search for the answers that he had sought before, the endeavor becomes more of a futile dance that was better left off to never begin, and the other doppelgänger’s baritone voice echoes through his barely decorated chamber with such intensity that the visualized image climbs up through his straightened back. 

His impeccably pressed, tattered charcoal robe clings onto him with a slight perspiration and then, he looks up to the other with a pang of curiosity. Had he ever imagine thinking of himself locked within another’s embrace, spending the night, laughing in all honesty and leaning in to kiss someone else as his heart drummed like stretched raw hide, letting him completely immerse in somatic assertion as he crosses the impending allure of forbidden territory he had restricted himself. Twisted upon blood and flesh as the lust becomes darker and alluring than the jet-black of the corridor they occupy with such force. Stronger than the wire-puller, completely immersed. 

_How long had he traded his physicality to come down in an exertion something other than the grueling training itself?_ Maybe through this unexpected cornucopia of battle, a battle for dominance as that _alone_ would stretch **time** and **space** into an immeasurable extension. “Strange for me to admit this in entirety, but I would be lying if I said that particularly blasphemous thought hadn’t crossed my mind once.” 


	82. Chapter 82

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My answer to the question, "I'd like to see him going through an extremely stale period of time, a period in which nothing in his current life, the usual fun, or the usual sources of excitement bring absolutely nothing to him. The incapability to feel satisfaction or pain. It might sound boring to some but I'd like to see how he'd realise it and react to it, to feel completely stale."

Thrumming music, reverberating hints of accumulated life outside the closed doors, such blissful caress of luminescent rays of the dance floor, the initial burn of the liquor through his esophagus as it both stimulates and soothes his tumultuous mind… None of those reached down to the depth of the concrete-surrounded bleakness of the porous walls. He’s not sure if he’s tenaciously shielding his thoughts from all the sensations, or simply, after years and years of retreating back to the confines of his **sanctuary** , he had lost his usual vigor and electric energy. 

Sometimes the cold hard truth is hard to admit; when was the last time he had filled the chambers of his lungs with something enticing, other than an congruent ectoplasm of stale smoke, that rusty flecks of stubborn blood between his fingernails and the back of his throat (how fishy and unpleasant it was after a while, though the sight of crimson deluge was utterly exquisite), potent onslaught of burnt flesh as the muzzle pulled from his executed victims and his own sweat and musk? Nothing else invaded his usual vast expanse of senses and provided sensory overload. 

Even a wildfire would lose its all-consuming power and its capricious unpredictability and he would wander around like a hopeless, hesitant lost child about to collapse in a heavy snowdrift with hypothermia, with all of his warmth dwindled and expelled. Perhaps his _mentality_ , shoddily soldered with hands of a layman, with its essence had already been taking an out of body experience as not all of the strands would make it back. A **wanderlust** spirit, without a set stone destination. Perhaps he would snort diamond dusts and die of internal bleeding for that manner. The silvers of infinitesimal shards concocts a rather gruesome image of Colombian drug lord’s foreseen demise, which both sounds like a faraway fairy-tale as his own sealed exit.

And he’s gushing blood, just like how he had foreseen it before; instead of the drug’s deafening effect as so many stimuli would ravage through him in multitudes with endless hum of bees and his pulse ringing loudly in unperturbed silence, he feels stagnant. It’s as if he had been plugged off from his senses, completely encased within a quick-setting cement as his lungs refused to expand and contract. Accompanying crimson spectacle and his body shutting down would completely shift anyone’s galaxy, yet. **Nothing**. So instead of the deafening ache, he’s accompanied by nothing further than a passing breeze, as his still gaze slowly lulls shut, along with a freely flowing caress of gleaming ruby over his lips. 


	83. Chapter 83

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For Nigel, love doesn't necessarily have to be kiss and sex and unification and all that's ought to be.

Living in the world of manifested beauty, yet it marred his own definition of thriving life and luxurious endeavors and debaucheries he could take in. Violence itself had been addictive, just as the spillage of crimson ruby and staring into the opal-like blackness that reflected his darkened visage, with its ravaged basilisk stare. Not only he relishes the strange and wicked beauty in violence exerted on others, but himself as well. Like a landscaping artist delighting in aesthetic refinement and taste for palpable exploration among soil, tree trunks and wildly blossoming flowers, his retention and imminent retaliation would be blooming bruises like flower petals, contusions like the crack upon sun-baked earth and his own projected velocity of bullets tearing through the flesh, muscles and sinew would be the deeply rooting trunk of the ancient oak. He doesn’t have to ponder hard to gauge Alexis’ sangfroid acceptance as once again, a quotidien endeavor when it comes to his toxic pull towards the rush of gratification. The story of a war, a tale of a dark night in the endless, unfathomable ocean of gashes and contusions. 

Like a crouching tiger with his hurt paw, his shoulders bear the knotted distress and the weight of what’s expected of himself. The intensity of the whirlwind brings more constriction upon the strands of muscles as the charged electricity clumps in orbs, instead of flaring through to release and generate more energy. Hazel growing more diaphanous with the reflected beads of the tiles and his own skin, he’s well-aware of Alexis’ probing gaze, as if she had been already undressing him off. The satin-cotton button down Armani soaks with intermittent droplets of blood and he cannot help but to let the corners of his lips twitch upward. With a set jaw and grim line forever etched through his sunken eye sockets, he braces himself against such beating wave. No, his body isn’t a fucking temple and yes, he could’ve taken care and more consideration when he navigated through the inky blacks of midnight, through the enemy front. 

As numerous drops accumulate to trace along the defined sharpness of his weathered profile. Seeped colors of his usual tanned face permeates more with ash gray, beneath his caved in almonds. Like fine textured surface of the leaf slowly crackling away. He didn’t need elements to get him towards that nihility; he’s already crumbling beneath the hard carapace. Like a turtle without a protecting shell. Such affection and love was luxury upon themselves, yet his commitment to separate and maintain their indefinable relationship doesn’t come so easily. And with his surprise, he finds her wordless caress graze his naked torso and his lips lock in a genuine smile. Weary but wonderful. Exhausted, yet appreciative. For him, love didn’t have to be the sunbeam that keeps him safe and sound, but to accept that this painted ruby red had been another layer of his fundamental fragrance. Something that had been bestowed upon him through his life. 


	84. Chapter 84

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nigel confessing possible feelings to his loved one in drunken and drug fuelled state.

Some might consider it weakness, a fucking blasphemy that was unacceptable in the field of dominant alphas. He never had dared to cross that boundary he set upon himself as he never considered himself delving into the emotional baggage that followed after the kill, after that resounding triumph and thrill akin to an incomparable high, to utmost exquisite arousal. More than the vertiginous lull and the otherworldly realm as he crossed the boundaries between the somatic world and teetering edge between oblivion. If he was ever to remove himself and stand outside the inconceivable, then he would be calculative and remain behind his usual characteristic gruff. 

That’s easy, utilizing the object around him to threaten the individual - _wasn’t revenge a dish best served in cold come painfully true for him?_ That’s why he limited himself of befriending strangers and letting them take presence within his heart. No strings attached as there would be no _awful, hollow_ **emptiness** \- like something is missing within you that you cannot put into words. A taste of nectar is worse than none at all.  

The most primal and spellbinding emotions; _love, hate, contempt, anger_ came with such insanity bordering on histrionic slavery towards them. **Inconsiderate** people didn’t deserve his ounce of considerateness exuding from facial expressions or gestures. He could feel a trickle of sweat curving down the length of his spine, taking a curvaceous deep along his straightened and rigid posture as his head ever so slightly tilts, his eyes still unblinking as they were held by invisible threads. The lub-dub of his heart increase, the lump in his throat makes his pulse race as he gets lost in the world and the mere dimness of the booth, the tiny cracks between the sweeping illumination becomes a distant foreign sensation. 

Now surrounded by such coldness that brought back the sense of bittercold animosity, goosebumps rise on his forearms and on his back as he hurries to shelter beneath the lengthening streaks of the city lights, his form projecting a tunnel-vision as his form squats down lower. As numerous streaks bounce and ricochet off the visor of his tinted helmet, such mountainous gaze reduce to a muddled dusk, spreading over the skyline as such reckless abandon, of love takes whole. And it’s as if his own inextinguishable warmth had been bouncing back through, impregnating with more flamboyant dynamism within the comfortable darkness. 

Stomping feet become intermittent stagger along the fifth-floor walk-up and the time seems to drag; not only the literal sense, but as his crooked mirror image reflects upon the window glass with spilling moonlight as he briskly storms inside the familiar sanctuary of theirs, he feels the frame of the revolver press even more tighter against the dimple of his back, as if pressing with urgency. Through glimmering stardusts and retracting darkness seeps into his creaking bones and the world slants, sinking back-first onto the mattress with her gaze fixated on the sprawled limbs as dull rippling wave overloads his stimuli. “Why are you… still fucking here.” Syllables stretch and drawl like taffy and words seem to ring off his cranium, along with a resounding heat. 

“I’m just a fucking silver gleam upon the bleeding edge, with fucking broken _heart and soul._ You’ll never accept who I really am. A _fucking_ bad fortune full of bloody mouth full of venom and bruises.” A fluttering, long sigh petrifies his expanding ribs as the bridge of his forehead pinches a bit, his distress and onslaught of hangover already present in his caved in, slightly removed gaze. “Fucking god, you’re so close, but so damned far away, like the grains of sand between my fingers. Vast, **ungraspable**.” 


	85. Chapter 85

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Scarlctgoddess said; "Wanda's going to use her magic to tie him up because everyone wants to tie Nigel up. I am ready to tie Nigel up. he was born for this." 
> 
> ( Everybody wants to tie Nigel up, pfff. )

Blissful caress of the luminescent rays didn’t reach down the depth of the concrete-surrounded bleakness of the walls of his club. Completely filled with chipped paints and suffocating air of stale nicotine and corroding pungency of blood, intensified with his own. Even when the sun would have reached his overhead, his office maintained the pitch-black obscurity. Nimble fingers quickly ground himself, as bullets push through the the cylinder, and his equally piercing gaze shoots to break the sinking silence of the pitch-black. Nights like these were precious. There was a sole reason why he had maintained his innate nocturnal nature down to his bones as he braced for the intruders. It had a strong inclination to change its course at an instant and there was a certain enigmatic intuitiveness in those glimmering stardust. It made him to retract more to himself in the darkness as he plunged his head down to the netherworld, where the raw fear of abandonment, along with his ignited raging fire inside turning against himself in self-destruction. 

The English vocabulary lacked the means to define this enigmatic conundrum of such competency and his own subversive destructiveness. Most likely, it had been _self-annihilation_. Those pass through as pins and needles intensify, he wants to shut everything off and let his body remain in an empty carapace as reality becomes brutal, a savage mental violence within his skull as fragments of chipped paint and cement hurtle towards his direction.  ****It had merely taken him two bullets through the silencer to bring down two of them that had been hawking down on his peripheral. Pivoting as his smooth sole of oxfords glided against the puddle, a quirk of his cruel curving lips could be seen through the reflection as he barks orders in his gravelly Romanian through his earpiece. His associates would be more than capable enough to hold them off without him as he had another important affair to take into his consideration. Yet, the club remained to be too silent.

Those passing snapshots become flying syllables. The recurrent muscle memories floating upon the air like a caressing wind or a trembling edge of the embers, or is it more like looking through the kaleidoscope? It’s even more so like a painting, more atmospheric and three-dimensional. That strange chill, engulfing him and holding him together akin to a magnetic force holding his somatic cells. A calmness washes over him, just like the serenity before a spectacle of torn fibers and every little sensation feeds off of even the disconnecting ones. Yet, it’d be foolish to disregard tension between his paradoxical somatic response, as he swallows an invisible lump. The heart of the pin-up girl tattoo breathes the life of its own and he could feel a dense salty sweat contour the length of the fallen lock on his forehead. Hunger begins to creep over him, he doesn’t know which as he parts from the bar-top. Then, he hears a distinctive click of the glock and his body immediately tenses up, fingers turning white upon the dripping moisture. 

Instead, he’s faced with bloody red tendrils of discharged whips, immediately clasping around his wrists as prickling icicles turn scalding red, branding his wrists with lashing streaks. Fingers unfurl like withering vines, as he watches his revolver clank against the wall, falling at his arm’s distance as shocked hazel arches a deathly glare towards the woman. Serrated edges ride up against his torso, constricting and binding him enough for him to make an unscathed escape simply impossible. With his arms bound against his back with his figure seemingly suspended in space, his poisoned whiskey gaze grows filmy, unblinking and obstinate as his jaw sets. He had fallen, yet he’s not afraid nor cave in to whatever proposition the other offers. “If I were you, I’d fucking end my rumination and let me be in my fucking underlying pool of suffering.” Scalding heat brims through his lower lash as he battles to hold his dominant stance, through his shuffling view.    


	86. Chapter 86

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Verge of Dissolution || Nigel in Pre-Canon verse.

The chilled cloudless sky, filled with scattered diamond dusts along the vastness isn’t enough to act as an emollient, the vehement red and black with its streamlined facade greets him to offer him a bit of a relief. Trying to pacify the somatic sensation as his less than agile fingers try to work his way above the drenched shirt, he struggles as he circles his dominant arm around his left wrist in attempt to rip the fabric off. Beneath his fur-lined leather jacket, a simple, yet efficient tourniquet would at least hold his gut up while he attempts to make it back to his club, where a proper kit would stop him from being a fucking roadkill or a fish out of the water.   


 

Torpor seeps through the slatted ribs, constricted and held as his bated breath comes in intermittent spills. Still in his low energy-conserving mode, yet summoning every dispersing thread of his honed hand-eye coordination weaved through the strands of his hard muscles, as he easily slip into this impeccable concentration. Not letting an ounce of his mind wander someplace else, especially not the swelled up patches of gnarled edges, gnawing at him like ravens upon decomposing corpse. Yet, the distinctive changes in his somatic response is soul-troubling; the crook of his elbow presses down into the slippery handle, as clammy palm loosens the grasp along his injured side; a short, yet intense stretch of alertness literally spins the air with brightness. It also feels freshly washed, upon the sweat, sweltering heat and accentuated scent of his life fluid at work. Tension coils behind his eyeballs as the clicking sound of the accelerator turn into a booming amp against his ears.

 

His pain teeters between nullification and gnawing nibbles upon the immeasurable stretch of distance, yet he feels its fucking presence like the tears within his soul. Like the sailors relying solely upon the coordinated map of the celestial bodies, he is nil without that hint of light as his fingers touches upon the sky, as it alights the path he journeys. Within that black-clad form retracting his figure into the silent pitch-black of the night, his heart-print would always be vivid with such luminescence. The gleam of the headlight manifests into that flickering embers as his mind finds beauty in his strident mind, soon, his retaliation would come in order as he would sink into no emotions; just logical actions, detaching from his heart as he would excuse himself of self-preservation. Then, the blood would resurgent the coiled emotion buried within the bed of coal, an epiphany upon the desolate castle walls that had been haunted with a cloak of disguise.  

 

Then, despicable yet grueling minutes of ebbs and flows followed. As he slipped back and forth between the reality of grim tidal wave of pain that would manifest in a form of red surging to drown his chest, or it would be reliving the unpleasantry through half-dream and half-ephemerality as he plunged deep into his own subconscious. He could still feel the tremor coursing through as every pore and carbon of his skeleton had ceased to exist; time had stopped and warped into another dimension, before he felt the sensation of being worthless and failure on his part slap and hurtle him into an unfathomable well. 

 

Seconds lingered to be minutes, the quotidian life had become a burden that he would endure, as the wounded animal with its vehement sorrow contained in those diaphanous orbs. So he limits his thought; with that aforementioned hand clutching his gaping side, his dominant arm quivering to fight that very affliction that touches his side, all the way down to his thighs and thumps against his heart. Vibrating through him whole, as whipping wind combs through his already dismantled hair. A layer of sweat frames his forehead, awkwardly shifting on the leather seat as the dark mountain that threatens to consume him whole.

 

Lacking his stone-like certitude as he vacillates still. His usual decisiveness and knowing all too well what the consequences will be, but holding true to his words, the curiousness is what drives him to fire up that engine further. He finally decides to abandon his initial plan of fixing up his torn stitches there and then and makes a makeshift tourniquet instead as he firmly perches himself. It would be a fifteen-minute ride back to his flat, where more crepuscule-like light suffocated the ambiance, like a settled ash obscuring the boundaries. 

 

No matter what he was coming down with, the vehement stubbornness remained strong as ever. However he liked to fly by the seat of one’s pants and constantly getting into all sorts of mishaps - from fender-benders to a head-on collision which earned him a glorious concussion (and a drill sergeant in his conscious urging him to wear a fucking helmet from then on), he knew all too well what this could consequently get him to do. The last thing he wants to do is to gaze back down at the scalding traces with lightheaded confusion and expire that last damned breath - and he had faced one time too many to disregard the wandering thoughts and deciding the most optimal solution would be. He didn’t like to let his most trusted associates - even Darko, for that matter - into his sanctuary. The austere visualization comes in its vivid imagery under his bloodshot eyes, as dark rings under his thick eyebags darken a shade. Walls have been smeared with his unrestrained emotions and every pore oozed with his essence. All the subliminal collections had been scooped up, reserved and stored in that utilitarian bunk, serving as an extension of his office inside the club. The welcoming respite of having a creaky, bouncy mattress underneath his back and the sparkling celestial bodies over his head when the ancient air conditioning system groaned as all the other apparatus did.

 

But even before letting his exhausted form  ****sink beneath the reverie of his mind, half-lidded hazel barely perceives the hurtling view as the world tips over, spins into a tumultuous vortex. All of the breathed gas surges into the follicle of his bronchitis is at a higher pressure than the surface pressure, owing to the pressure of the surrounding water. With unrelenting resilience of a fighter, he knows he have carried so many storms with him and watched himself ashore as the light seem to echo through the fluttering expanse of his skin. Now his corporeality reduced into a mere empty shell of his previous glory as silver mercury drops weigh him further down, acting like an indestructible anchor. He’s entirely pinned beneath the vehement frame of his bike, with broken piece of windshield adding another layer of his grim situation. It could’ve been his miscalculation, as the walls bear the distinctive spray of his blood in a dramatic arch. Was this a battle of tragic denouement, as grim reaper had intended to pluck the most precious soul on the earth.

 

Already on the verge of dissolution as he watches the lingering constellations wheeling by him as his view whirls into multitudes, his bonfire-center of his core begins to crackle and suffocate as a booming sonic boom further shatters into the spinning air. The coldness begins to stack up as his mind sings with monochromatic colors, in shades of blues, then sinking silence as the world reduce into a field painting. 


	87. Chapter 87

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Exquisite Requiem || N & K  
> Nigel x Kaecilius, immediately follows 'Beneath Our Skins'   
> It could serve as its own drabble, but it'd make more sense if you read my former long-headcanon-y drabble.

Splitting through the chilled air of the Bucharest alleyway, then the view paradoxically changes over to the expansive grounds of the sun-baked grounds as paradigm shifts. As Kaecilius saunters with his characteristic composure and long stride, the trailing embers seek its closure as their traces upon that part of the world ceases. Now completely engulfed by the pillars of the structure, which remains blended within the blanketing silence and darkness and parched air, the sorcerer’s vision turns inward where his battle still raged. His mouth still fills with bile and blood, where the former criminal had struck him. The air is devoid of any moisture as sandy particles caress the sharp protruding curve of two men’s cheekbones as serrated arch connects into a circular vortex, incessantly whirling as briskly striding figure, along with a limp figure held upward without an ounce of exertion as Kaecilius holds Nigel in a fireman’s hold. 

_Don’t let it consume you_. Nigel’s limbs seem to sever at the weakened ends of the cartilages, as bubbles accumulate and migrate through his entire body. There is a void, irreparable and dripping with venom, as hazel behind shut lids fuse with such familiar etch of crimson as eyelids flutter. He would’ve gouged them out if he didn’t have a single morsel of self-preserve and narcissism, albeit his own becomes that of the fallen angel’s. The familiarity of inflammation through his muscles seem to infect the rest of him as his thrashing soon abates to completely limp in seconds. Then, as his body succumbs within the grasping waves as they whip through his flesh like butter, he would diminish and fade away before his cells wither into the puddle of light. In widening curves and chasms of his brain. 

Kaecilius lets his own untold tales soak in abstract; he had spilled his guts enough to who he still considers a relative stranger as he removes himself in the comfort of the darkness. Such foreign desolateness feels uncannily bizarre. Especially when such concept of death and lengthening time screams, screeches and shrieks  Taking the form of the position when he had entered the world, he would return back to dust in the same curled up manner in his fetal position. With his accelerated thrums as his heart threatens to push through and spread his ribcages apart, he relinquishes to the force of the currents.

He’d gone to war numerous times, had patched himself slowly and his entire gestalt had disappeared through the widening cracks as he took a plunge. Erratic heartbeats beating in percussions in the midst of the sea, as celestial stars glisten and sparkle through the floating lump of his figure. Melting into him as a corporeal energy, manifesting into a brimming core fueled with it. He just needs a change of scenery, that tenacious sheets of curtains to be plucked out of his view as the immeasurable abyss continues to gaze him like a black hole.Was it magic? His matching desire to live; his continual resistance to not settling into this untimely demise as his body dies, yet the body’s beauty lives through the desire and excitement. So does the deeply drawn night dies, along with a wave, interminably flowing multicolored hues seep into his voracious appetite, passion and wish to live.

A sharp intake through spills forth Nigel’s lips, ajar and still like a empty carapace of a doll. Maneuvered solely by Kaecilius’ unbelievable strength as his reserved vigor disembogues towards his upper torso. Strained pain blazes through Nigel’s heart and the mapped veins around his forehead stands out in the midst of blended and faded colors, as his hazel once again disappears beneath the heavy eyelids. The urge to satiate his parched thirst becomes a dominating as a restive finger whitens against the intensifying exasperation as they become talons against the sorcerer’s robes. His swelling stage fills with no dialogue and too much predictions; as more light drenches upon his form, the looming inky darkness becomes an endless reverberations of caw as Siren’s seductive notes take the turn for the worst.

Didn’t he remake himself, to simply prevent him from destroying himself too with such tenacious pricks of frigid icicles? As he lived alone in his headspace as the Master sorcerer had retreated in such burning, passionate contemplation and strung together in his knotting memory, he had grew cold, immovable though troubled. Even when his mind had been the tumultuous sky before a storm, he futilely tried to keep a cool head by learning to meditate, delving into the subjects of his interest as he had watched unfurling orange glow dance at his fingertips.  

All of his accumulated wounds are like bruises that never go away; a widening bruise in his mind, consuming over the chambers of his heart and lungs like fine dust he doesn’t even perceive breathing in. It lingers there like trauma, but he wouldn’t call his own a _trauma_. It might have molded him as he still had been a malleable and pliable like a clump of recently peeled block of clay. Whoever had took the grim sorcerer’s heart and had etched their initials into it had deeply penetrated and had made temple in it. In suffocating shackles of time and space, where fluid and blood disperses in unification, love becoming so wondrous, frantic yet disruptive and afflicting. 

Always looking for something to make their marks on, whether they be a city or a person. It could be the sickest and rawest as the twisted form takes a super-predator or a prey. Even when there would be no lies in his fiery, wild emotions, it could be all lies when fictional. This was nothing from a fiction. He had been molded in clay, baked to resemble marble and now he was chipping and cracking away beneath the curved needle.

 

The extension of Nigel’s fingers become the tips of the pencil, dragging sharp, stark contours through the luscious sheets as the last ounce of consciousness clings onto him. The only thing that makes sense is the thick scent of incense clouding him in shrouds and Kaecilius’ looming figure becoming a slanting penumbra. _Oh, he sings_ , through the frenetic bobbing of his adam’s apple and taut fibers of his neck muscles, through the exquisite requiem of the dead tissues falling like specks of snow crystals and the last spit of dense, coagulated blood serving as a climactic roar. 

He could literally feel his diaphragms burst with the bubbling gurgle of blood, the fishy tanginess only accentuated by the imagery bound by the spell. The sea sparkling beneath the beam of sunlight beneath the clumps of shadowing clouds, sweeping over like a premonition as they looked more like giant falcons spreading their wingspan. No, he doesn’t need any more addition of audible screeches or successions of caws to aggravate the strident musical compositions. His heart is electronica, his mind is ballad and his head spins and agitates with sharp riffs of the heavy metal guitar.    

No, he won’t partake in self-sabotage. With Kaecilius’ ulterior motive to thwart him from secluding himself towards the death’s invitation to face another, and another through grueling training, his head bounces against the immobility. A decisive signal to let her know that he hadn’t yet crossed the inevitable. The sorcerer’s dark-etched gaze pierces through his own memories of having been trampled, smashed and crushed beneath the weight of the recent memory, yet his mind is decades away as he keeps his gaze over to where the conjured blade had barely missed Nigel’s heart. It indeed was looking through his old self, nothing without a tenacious will to never let the tortuous pain get the best of himself. At least he earned a _marginal_ respect from him for that, but more remained to be seen; for Kaecilius had met such individuals inflicted with guilt, sadness, numbness, or whatever the wretched circumstances their lives had been marred with. 

Nigel’s torso angles away from Kaecilius’ impassive gaze as the healer conjures up the spell to instantly heal him and that’s when his profile clamps shut before the woman’s words make all the tangled notes to align. With more coppery glow tinged upon the stretched expanse of the small hills and valleys, Nigel lets out a sigh of relief with an air of his true nature of the emotions that had provoked in him with such an intimate kneading - although _fleeting_ , the invisible and nonexistent gesture is still upon him like an assailing spillage of the wavering flame, continuously wrapping him over as his thoughts cross a boundary. He’s only reduced into a body with only the barest trace of mass then, and his body transcends into the merest quivered hint at an outer boundary as he takes the last breath before it blurs into vagueness like an ink drop in water. Unconsciousness finally claiming him as his body aglow with azure blueish tint.

Then, something akin to the sweltering summer afternoon catches in Kaecilius’ lungs. The concept of _trust_  comes in its rarest form, as he had literally tossed the idea of his own mortality to reach beyond the finiteness and utter helplessness through the pounding stampede upon his already trampled heart. Through the pandemonium and all of this going around his overworking head, the whole endeavor within that mirror dimension was a caressing, pivotal experience in a continuous string of his training. As he’d rather mourn over the truth than live by a lie and pretending all of his past didn’t tear him apart in his personal hell. 

The tumultuous thunderclouds sparking within, the consuming waves turning their claws and hooks are no more. Abated and enraptured by quantum tranquility, his quivering lips beneath a tight clench of his teeth ajar, fluttering as he swallows an intake of breath. Retreating back into his chamber to leave Nigel in his own solace to recover for a floundering training the next day, Kaecilius lets the confounding emotion etch just enough against the pupil of his abysmal well before taking an opportunity to look into the new sun in his chest. Not the chasm of the darkness offering him another power and sense, but a look into his human side, which he had considered a blasphemy. 


	88. Chapter 88

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nigel takes a bullet meant for Clarice.

The silent fluctuation had warmed him through the rippling motions. Perhaps that sole sensation was more so vehement and powerful than the sweeping wildfire always seemingly translate the unchecked emotion that would roll around his heart as his view engulfs with wide array of gleaming crimsons and oranges. Through the cacophonous hubbub of instantaneous calamities, of bodies falling like dominos suspended in the air, the lives burning down to their stub until not an ounce of resurgent life present against their already ravaged bodies, the timbre of their screams and fall penetrates through his brain. He would, most likely, meet the same fate in such uncertainty, yet they are one-man armies, a monster and a beast among inadequate men. 

It all takes is a whisper, red with such fury and penetrative stare from the blind corner from where Clarice stands and the night further dips, along with the sickle blood moon and whipping wind turning from caresses to shallow graves upon his goosebumped skin. He could still remember his fingers clutching the still-warm candle stub and bending down to scent the long-extinguished smoke emit such a warm glow upon one of his associates’ fall. The tenacious life still clinging onto him even the body’s incessant convulsing tells otherwise. And soon, he’s looking into his own, slowly extinguishing flame as his hips pivot, his smoldering stare widening and petrifying in mid-air as a ruinous shot embeds within the back of his shoulder blade. 

It’s like looking deep into the heart of the new flame, alit in the center of his heart, supposedly burning off the smell of death as its edges flickered. And he’s razed in wreck as he crumbles down, atop of her with fingers still tightly clutched upon the trigger. A shot fires, connects to the gunman’s left thigh. 

A saccharine, almost _indetectable_ smile to split into such frigidness of it all -  

Though it could cause wild destruction and create a mismatched mess, he would always be drawn into the persistent nature of the burning fire; even when reduced to dust as the last perceivable etch of smoke leave its premise. It still clings upon the chambers of his lungs as it morphed into colossal mountainous waves, the swelling chorus rises up in held breath and pours down upon him. Since then, everything amplified as if he always had a microphone in front of his pulsating heart. It’d be always there with the darkest moment of the night as he perceives such infinitesimal flame take ahold of the vast expanse of him like the chilly rain water, seeping through and soaking him whole as the warmth trickled down his back.

“J-just stay here, Clarice, fucking pretend you’re dead,” fingers bend against cold concrete as paradoxical sensation sweeps him back and forth. He’d play _defenseless_ and _beaten_ , until the whirling world unfolds itself and until it sinks beneath such unperturbed silence as it did before. 


	89. Chapter 89

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompts: things you said when you thought I was asleep
> 
> Nigel x Gabi

He’s brisk and stormy, as trails of scattered clothing hurl from his fingertips. An embodiment of quietly hovering hurricane as his usual, composed composure droops a little. His clasped fingers lets go of the suitcase, compactly packed, with a shopping bag on the other hand, which had been adorned with a tasteful, red ribbon with a silver lining. Usually, he never has a problem slipping into a deep oblivion, yet the past two days had taken a toll, and all he had managed to get were fitful sleep in between meetings and tasks. And he rarely managed a satisfying slumber on airplane. Soon, he’s barefoot, clad only in his black boxer briefs with combination of sweat, smoke and caramelly whiskey clinging onto hardened copper, compacted muscles encasing strong bones. His gaze immediately hovers into the room already swelling with imperturbable silence and finds Gabi already asleep. Her modest chest rise and fall steadily beneath a white slip-dress as his large palm contours through his exhausted facade, running slightly flushed and hot with rising stream of flaring heat. 

Quietly inching closer to her and laying his front against her back, and still swimming in the cascade of slightly chilled summer night air, he plants a kiss against the crook of her neck. A jut of his lower lip glides off her alabaster skin in a featherlight touch over the drumming vein before parting, their adhered bodies motionless in synchronization minus the throbbing pulsation of his heart. There’s an uncharacteristic urgency rubbing off through his demeanor as his scattered ashen locks frame over his half-lidded gaze. An onslaught of torpor hits him and his muscles thread with such heaviness that his appendages feel burdensome than weights. Nigel only emits an exhaustive and warm sigh, sheets fluttering beneath him and her as the ridges and folds from the rippling creases deepen along with his weight sinking further. Languidly tilting his head as fingers sleepwalk through the fluttering planes of her stomach, he plants a kiss over the corner of her lips, careful of his bristling stubble from grazing over her skin. 

“I either don’t fucking sleep or I always dream of you,” another exhale, much softer as his bicep tighten around her petite frame, as he brings the sheet over her, not on him. “To know that I have to go away for another few days the day after… Fucking _frustrate_ me. Fucking shame it’s the orchestra season.” Idly stroking her while his other hand rakes through the fiery silkiness cupping around her cheekbone, he circles the strands around her dainty ear and lets the corner of his full lips stretch. “Every fucking time I walk by a donut cafe, I always think of you and the imagery immediately takes me back to the place where I fell in love and _nothing_ else fucking mattered,” a lulling sleep threatens to tip him over to the other side as lips stretch in languid etch. “Like… as if the scent of your perfume… your essence, permeated through the space.” A peaceful solitude expands as his typical baritone, husky voice reverberates against the back of his throat. No more teetering between the brink of fitful sleep and vague slip that resemble the closest to the short nap as fatigueness threads his pores as the unfolded strip of landscape. As he immerses in the emerald of her wrap dress and gray-blue of her unfathomable depth of sensuous gaze as he eases back into the comforting mold of her. Sleep comes instantaneously as his strength clamps down upon her. If she would be _plucked away_ from his embrace.  


	90. Chapter 90

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Something I wrote thinking about Kaecilius. 
> 
> Order and Chaos.

Five years of restless nights and cocooned in the incessant threads of his tragic memories,  
accompanying fathomable depth of void, _irreparable_ and dripping with venom,  
as his encompassing hazel fuzed with such familiar crimson   
 _would he ever be able to gouged them out  
in his gloating self-preservation and narcissism?_  
as drops turn dribbles, a shower becomes an ear-splitting, drowning downpour

a barely coherent stream of _consciousness_    
mirrors his _incoherent_ state of his mind and heart.   
how long had he encumbered by the room with a thousand cobwebs  
entwined to snare him in such petrified gloom in his entirety  
entirely absent of his vibrant and fiery persona   
as no amount of ephemeral _addictions_ and _self-destruction_ would cure him?

Those nights brought the untamed beast within him,   
all gleaming and gnarling teeth, his heart macerated by the jagged shards.   
each jumpy ebb confirming its _baneful existence_  
as even simple placidity of the past is melting away,  
in intense self-loathing, tempered and soldered in _spikes_    
and shattered remnants hang by threads. 

spawning traces of pre-existing strands of memories   
as he plucks the stake off from his heart, letting it become _septic_.   
Lashing out beneath the aid of distorted blurriness, more so   
intensified by the intoxication, an amateur with such instrument of virtuoso.   
 _coherence_ is only a climax when he’s capable of controlling the zenith of   
his **order and chaos** and his _unattainable_ ego

within each jagged brokenness of the shards,   
his own arrogance would stab him in the back to become coarse and gritty,  
turning them into needles with rising decibel within his mind.   
He must have reminded himself countless times.   
For this isn’t his predestined demise, this deathly stagnation   
isn’t what he sought as a state of clarity and soulful _valiance_  

At least the razor blades lodged in his throat and Atlas-like grief   
had been lifted with his recent ordination of such coveted title;   
 _the Master of the Mystic Arts._  
commitment and such fevered emotions towards fueled love;   
in wild and untamed _inevitability_    
as he backtracked the memory of his true love with every step, 

he had conquered every herculean challenges posed in front of him   
and prevailed with his heart kept in cages.   
 _How many times he had been rejected by his own physical prowess  
_ _threaded by bitter, rueful chill that would graze his bones?_  
evaded warmth, the frolicious nature carved out by demons in his mind.   
In a fight or flight situation, drenched in assumptions and letdowns

through provided _knowledge_ , _guidance_ and _support_ ,   
pushing him beyond recurrent **unconsciousness**.   
he would forever be amble, in his herculean journey of repeated failures   
and rejections, sorrows and bouts of fury amidst his clicking benevolence   
and patience. Had he ever made it till here without such _brutality_    
as his body bore the impressions of such _persistence_ and ongoing _drive_.


	91. Chapter 91

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompts: things you said when no one else was around 
> 
> Nigel x Mischa, Léon the Professional AU.

With a roll of his shoulders, he zigzags through the wavering shadows, along with the rows of small flame dancing from the overhead. Flickering lights continually ignite and waver his own revulsion towards those motherfuckers, who preyed on weak, such vulnerable and helpless adolescents to merely reduce them into objects of their pleasures and satisfaction. The sizzling embers, the downpour of the rain, the crisp freshness arising from the air as his whooshing surge of blood booms and shatters through the air. His head spins, as he had sent Mischa in first, posing as one of those girls who worked the crowds as a decoy. Never was he reviled at himself for coming up with this idea, yet he couldn’t expose himself in this trojan horse tactic. Dead silence as his only company, he confirms that no individual would ever grace along this narrow corridor as bullets fire, barely emitting an audible sound through the silencer. 

He tries to build soldered walls, through his impeccably straight face as his unwavering gaze reduce down to gleaming blades. Penetrative, hovering over every nook and cranny before coming before where the mayhem would take its place. Mischa was already equipped with a dagger beneath her skirt, along with a small glock he had given her with his and her name etched on it. And if anything should happen to her, a pill, that would tore and rip through her petite frame in mere seconds, as quick-acting poison would render her lifeless. The mere thought of it brings scalding tears against the corner of his hazel as he dares not make a sound. 

Slender as his muscles tether and coil taut, he could feel each pore responding to even the slightest sound. The rhythmic echo of the breaths, the very air he inhales in frantic, pounding ebbs and flows. All is _counteractive_ right now. His body wants to shut down, be unplugged, while his mind is at its full operation as his bloodshot eyes make out his target. Senses honed to the finest perfection, precise as ever. 

It only takes a few, precise blaring gunshots to bring down his target of personal war and he finds Mischa, bloody with splattered crimson all over her dress, with no hint of assault or ravaging against her frame. He finds himself trembling, and leaning way too close against her than he should. There might be spectators, through afflicted moans and groans of the dying, scattered about his feet. 

Call it arousing anger transformed into a cloying scent of adrenaline as he consciously buries his head against the crook of her neck. “Have you got any fucking idea, I’ve spent such an inordinate amount of time thinking about your safety,” finding excuses to touch her, as soon as his gun is tucked into where it belongs, his broad palm caresses the sensuous curve of her cheek, all the way down to her exposed collarbone. 

“I’m never letting you get into this situation ever again.” 


	92. Chapter 92

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> flashback; Gabi's death

The onslaught of gunpowder scent rushes through his nostrils and the blaring gunshot tears through the back of his mind, as his straightened composure pivots around to register the sight before him. His own muscled arm, in all in honesty, trembles with recurrent recoils and exertion through impeccable precision in his endeavor. His aimed projectile is swift with desired effects, as the atmosphere drenches with dense miasmic crimson. He exhales through the veil of heaviness and he watches one of his most trusted henchmen stumble down with an unmistakable arterial spray upon his thigh with a sharp cry that splits through the air. The man whom he had asked for a favor to protect Gabi if he ever lost her trace, which seemed far unlikely. 

His own fired bullet penetrates through the assailant’s neck, just short of the man’s carotid. No matter, he simply produces a pocket knife from his hand and slits the man’s throat in one single wide sweep. His breath settles beneath his lung as he gets a splash of warm crimson shower and he clams his eyes shut, letting the seething rush come over him. 

Another sharp cry settles him towards the reality and his penetrative gaze is fixated upon another figure, which seems to be suspended in the air; Gabi. Fuck. In his dumbfounded haste, his unspoken shriek becomes a hushed voice within his esophagus and his lip tugs tightly, biting hard enough that he could taste blood soon after. Uttering curses in thick and low Romanian, he shoots the bastard down through his shoulder before his oxfords staccato upon his own resonating heat. 

Through that scalding sensation as saltiness brims with such effervescent emotions, he lets some of the watery discharge roll, before quickly forcing it back to recede beneath his deathly still orbs. It doesn’t take much of his scrutinization to register that she’ll be gone in a minute tops. With the gleaming intensity still carrying him to boil with such bouts of violence and animosity, he lets his emotion cascade upon her to bathe her, before muttering sweet nothings into her trembling, frail body. 

Then, it’s all automatic, as he embodies the inner demon to lash out in unchecked anger, he is soon pummeling his ravaged fist into the man’s concave skull. Through the heated inside of the plastic bag over the man’s head to minimize the mess he would create, his anger grows ever more exponential, as his heart threatens to eject through the back of his throat. He’s sinking in fathomable abyss of sinking descension as numerous daggers embedded in his heart twists. He’s crumpling and breaking down as he regards his flustered reflection through the black opal of the strewn blood. 


	93. Chapter 93

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pre-canon, brawler Nigel.

The night unfolds like an undulating mirage, as the only sensation he is aware is irresistible lassitude due to the threading mercury drops of his inflictions. Accumulated bruises and contusions as his body fails to resurgent in his perfect predatory form. It mars the sense of gravity and he feels likes if he’s been hurtles into space, to be crushed upon the added gravity of the universe. His own fingers clutch onto the creased, bloodied sheets with a vice trip. He would break the curve of the steel though he’s laced with a fleeting dose of morphine. 

What used to be the divine dulcet notes through his veins had long lost its flavor, as it had already been degraded into rotting putridness inside him. The world burns along with him, in the heated surface of the sun-drenched earth as he sleeps in tents, along with smells of stale sweat and iron-rich blood accompanying him. He snorts breakfasts and looks upon faces melting into the dark voids. The devastating and cruel notion of the human nature reduces upon suffering jabs and thrusts, his haymakers and sweeping kicks that would render bigger adversaries down to their knees. Both as a lion and a lamb, with deep wounds etched from every victim of his journey as he prevails few steps, recedes one to take a breath, recuperate as his own valiant deliver comes with a cry of his muscles. 

His gaze instantly sweeps down to the withering petals and vines, their usual clumped freshness long gone beneath the stifling heat. His spine tingles with tenseness, with an onslaught of his glorious former memories of being a rising star upon the club’s scene. Yet, the petrification of its memory becomes too burdensome as it flows scalding fluids. It becomes a continuous flow that holds his essence and he is silent, as the vessel of his body holds the most treasured emotions and memories; of _throbbing_ walls, the _visceral_ image of his composed composure. Such unadulterated recollections buried deep within the den of his subconsciousness.  

And letting those memories unfold like the catalyst for his percolated explosion, he recedes back to the reality and lets the settled admittance, rewound and repeat itself like a film reel. The calamitous grip could burn through them, yet he would rise above god upon the mortals, until he burns through that arsenic furor and until every brash individual burns beneath him like scattered ashes. 


	94. Chapter 94

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gabi bandages Nigel's wounds.

The night had started with certainties, as he had made a promise he couldn’t keep, that he would stay out of trouble for another night and make home in one complete piece. That promise had been slipping as the time went on and his hot temper and coursing whiskey and vodka would let his conscience slip. And soon, he had been aggrevated enough to throw virulent jabs, along with his characteristic, slurrying profanities along with needlessly graceful kick to the other man’s groin, which had fueled the mother of all brawls. In an exhaustive battle of dominance, Nigel had straddled the man in the back of the hole-in-the-wall bar, breathing noxious fumes and pummeling him down as his own skin had been scattered with various nicks and gashes. An especially bad one made his already pronounced cheekbone about an inch higher, burying his caved hazel beneath. 

He could still feel the blood, coagulated and dribbling drops that trace the length of his neck, along his side where a flesh wound seeped a good amount of blood into his form-fitting button down. Muffled hiss concurrently push against the back of his throat, as antiseptic and withdrawing in prickling pain accompanies along with bitter resentment of etching the fucker’s name into the recess of his memory for a proper retaliation later. All is reminiscent of his childhood, as Hannibal had numerously mended and glued his fragmented self (and sometimes ego) back.  ****Nigel swallows visibly, as the flaring rush of salt pricks the back of his eyeballs. As if an onset of migraine was upon him, his rebellious heart protests as Gabi relents on. Defiant yet, a visible crack along his constantly hardened shell. Mended through his steely heart, which holds more bullets, more terrifying than those he conjures up from the depth of his imagination. He didn’t necessarily need one to concoct his own story, it was the damn real world.

The contours of his muscles throb and tremble, with such wildfire flaring through the strong curve of his neck, all the way down to his torso through encased muscles and flat planes. Through wrinkled gaze, he shoots charged gaze somewhere between Gabi’s porcelain skin, not quite meeting her blue-gray. He could sense his wife has a word or two about his hot-temperedness and how it pains her to watch him suffer in brooding silence from now on until that fucker had been disposed of, but still, she doesn’t shy away from gliding across Nigel’s sun-drenched expanse of strength and virility. And she doesn’t hesitate to tighten the white ribbon around him, as if she had been setting a mold to pour her love in. 


	95. Chapter 95

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ask a Killer | Heroes or Villains, Killing May Be Relative |
> 
> A time when you showed mercy.

There would have been enough hot crimson to fill his entire form, along with such flaring animosity and drive to match the determined gaze of the gunman. As when he dreamed, he would see that strange chill, manifesting into a bitter arctic coldness as he is forever stamped upon the predetermined fate. Bullet with his fucking name etched on it, threatening to tear the edge of his consciousness. He’s zoomed in for a _decisive kill_ ; and even when a locked door separates Gabi from his all-consuming fury that would eat him inside out, _the loss of touch,_ absence of their silent communication between mind and body he relished so much more than anything else become constantly interrupted with this unforgivable threat. 

The seemingly blunt force rattling every bone and sinews, that projectile with a precision that would jumble all of Charlie’s precious memories as a massive _disintegration_ takes place. There would be no piecing together the puzzles, _chipped, gnawed, broken, severed_. Incessant raindrops traps in Nigel’s chest and he was the one drowning, suffocating with his inextinguishable heat slowly and surely _snuffed_ ; for his heart wasn’t his to begin with when he had been ensorcelled by Gabi’s personal serenade. 

The retracting center of his hazel would only register his own piercing gaze, virulent blood dripping out as the barrel it blasted out of, the viewfinder filling with his entirety as he becomes an entity. Had he watched through flaring irritancy, of Charlie’s blood filling up the constricting haze of the plastic bag, as Nigel would drown Charlie in his own bleeding heart; yet through not so formidable armor he puts up through his impassive facade, it is _imploding_ , **hemorrhaging** as he traces Gabi’s gaze which never leaves Charlie. That familiar, tender trace of _starlight_ he saw upon her blue-gray, absent of intense love between them that would pull him out of the reality and halt the world. It doesn’t shine brightly anymore and gravity had torn them apart. 

So the passage of time warps and marks only by his only teetering sanity as he lets go of that runty cunt unwillingly. His empty gaze slicing through the darkness as he drifts further away from her in both body and mind; for not all the love deserves his skewed blindness and disposition of a devout dog, as he sweeps fire upon the world. 


	96. Chapter 96

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Twins, sexytimes. Hannibal grabs Nigel's fine ass and kisses him.

Usually, it’s him who’s more savagely _carnal_ , crudely honest and obsessively **possessive** when it comes to being overly **provocative** , yet he finds himself to be the very subject of his definable traits, along with such _boldness_. Hannibal’s monstrous, yet sublime intent becomes a reality as the lengthening silence continue as lips collide and caress, painting intense, definitive strokes upon one another’s voluptuous lips. Except their breathless pants and the inseparable connection they form as their ravenous lips search for more contact, the scene seem to still in freeze-frame, before everything hurtle to fast forward in threefold. The hands grasp, more of their husky, gravelly groans become merely above whispers against projected spillage as bared teeth becomes both a sign of a  _territorial predator_ ; a promise of blood and reverence at the same time. 

They’re apex predators, locked in a give-and-take battle of tug of war as they become those species that bare their teeth, as Nigel’s own form lodges between the black and merciless ocean of shadows and Hannibal’s familiar scents; where their past desperations and miseries cower beneath the weight of the vehement arousal, licking and flaring through the arched spine. Their muscles thrum with renewed life, as their movements become ripples under the weight of the depthless sea and exchanged caress of their hardened, sun-kissed skin grows tenacious and relentless as they conduct the same, synchronized orchestration. It floods his lungs and suffocates every single atom of his being.

Their intense, penetrating gaze matches such an occasion, but with a generated spark stronger than the bloodlust, their distance becomes paper-thin. Soon, his own fingers blur as he nimbly discards the inconvenience. And here he stands, willingly as he had ever been, drowning as the fundamental heat within him ignites further in the ocean of love. 


	97. Chapter 97

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nigel x Mischa, Léon verse.

He’s on a collision course; there’s no stopping him, as if his brakes were non-functioning. He either would never start the love affair, because he knows the grim circumstances of his work would enrapture him in rather prophetic thoughts, like visions or his infatuation would override his fears with something more beautiful. As if his already shattered heart had hinges he couldn’t control opening or closing, Mischa understood him, opened him up and accepted his paradigm. The rest had been a blessing, as shared pain and sadness morphed into an undetachable companionship and unceasing love. 

He wasn’t going to apologize for what has become of them; his life is a consistent uphill battle and he simply wasn’t going to bend and twist, refusing for it to break him. _Didn’t he already witness the butterfly effect with their shared lives?_ Forlornness followed after the loss of what seemed like an irreplaceable loved ones, but now she had effortlessly replaced his one and only. Unspoken words become accumulated emotions, A delectable fantasm of their shared kisses and laughters. 

“I’m not going to fucking apologize, because things happen. I feared you would simply be her replacement, but…,” suppressed words echo through the back of his throat as he visibly swallows, summoning up the sliver of courage. “You’re the knife blade and rose petals upon my throat, both sides of love combined.”   


_Which meant he would give up his life for her if the moment came and his love would grow even more intense as the time passed on._


	98. Chapter 98

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This could work with any Nigel x female ships.

The thought of leaving her with a shoddy, tribunal trophy of his past gnawed at him; though the abrupt gift didn’t lack its _significance_ nor the vicious power to be exerted upon, if she had wished it, yet it lacked certain charm and personalization. Devoid of the essence of all which could interest both of them. Of course, it held particular meaning to him, all his triumphs and all the maddening senses, as he once stood breathless after chasing all that was beautiful as he exhausted himself, giving his most valiant effort to live. Even when his eyes had been shut, he saw the world in vivid colors, mostly in thick, oozing crimson and deep purples. 

He was already familiar with the blade; _straight_ , containing the sparks of the night sky, along with his _imbued_ **essence** \- his own cursive engraved over the handle, of their unification. As if the object itself would contain his darkened soul, shadowed by his misfortune, yet came alive through all the peril and anguish of his past life. For he had been robbed of contented happiness, he doesn’t immediately see the world through the purified filters of his happy memories - they had long ago faded, like the old photograph of Lecter siblings in front of the Dvaras, on the expansive grounds full of fallen leaves, with the hint of crisp chill that would seep through his growing bones. 

The world is a dangerous place and she could guard herself from that integrated darkness when he’s ever absent. He becomes so consumed in that concept and sometimes he’d fail to see how luminescent that would be; with his offsprings situated within her womb, he wouldn’t remain forever young and one day, he would almost forget to breathe as reverberating whoosh of the crimson could be his sempiternal sendoff. The air feels heavier than ordinary, as he watches the blade pivot around his nimble fingers, as he hands her the intricate pattern on the kevlar of the sheath. 


	99. Chapter 99

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nigel x female. Your muse finds my muse locked away in an abandoned building, bruised and shocked.

The sense of sweet scents and fresh chill of the early spring doesn’t reach and pass through the gravelled surface of the old industrial complex, instead, it is the knowledge of his days being  _limited_ , as dust-laden interior becomes the catalyst for his suffocation and asphyxiation, an imminent sensation he’d feel if he hadn’t been drowned in his own fucking blood by the nightfall. No one, not even his own kidnapper and torturer, would really bother him, but he’s unprepared for anything, other than the despair of his complete _isolation_ and _abandonment_ , as no throat-tearing screams would penetrate both ways.

Instead of his fervent fire, there’s a wavering _hesitancy_ , a drenched fear that was more like an **abstract specter**. Something he couldn’t ever comprehend outside of the walls become his molecules as his hazel burns heavy with such song of siren. So _intoxicating_ and _lulling_ , as sleep would welcome him, yet he refuses to yield to that unconsciousness, as more pessimism sets in. His dry eyes tear and split, as he tastes more of the iron-rich blood from his split lips. All he could recall when those heavy eyelids close only temporarily, only to snap back open again with such vividness and horror of the image is finding dirty fingers roughly caressing and fondle around the valley and hill of his defined muscles, pummeling and thrusting them down until he is unable to resist the urge to scream through his cottony throat, full of broken shards and ash. 

The soft zephyr can cut him through like a knife, or the residing warmth of his could fill and swell his inside up to epic proportions and disintegrate him whole in deafening silence. His form is engulfed in splintered edges as he looks upon the cracked void of intermingled and indistinguishable landscape, ravaged and deformed, unfurled before him. Her form becomes a haloed mess and mists of grey, alluding their first encounter as familiar feeling of foreshadowing tangles through his brain. Though weakened, his fevered gaze never extinguishes, as if he was looking upon their shared and spent past. 


	100. Chapter 100

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nigel x any female ship. A kiss in the rain angst.

The one thing he hates the most about himself is no matter how hard he tried, through substances and other immoral means of achieving it, if he ever cared for a person at one point, he will never completely stop to care about them in entirety. For memories are double-edged sword; for every wound has its own story to tell and the bad overwhelms the good, and suffering and misery themselves become something poetic and beautiful in the long run. He had been already blessed with purple knuckles, blood and tear stained skin streaked further with scars as battle-tested armor constantly went through trials of error and recuperation. The recurrent act of self-annihilation romanticized to the point that without threaded violence and its unknown anticipation that would get his adrenaline pumping. 

Yet, today’s written love story strips off his resilience as the world where lovely flowers still bloom becomes his own tomb. Where the streets are far too quiet for him to only register the ear-splitting pitter patter of the raindrops, turning into a pinprick needles, soon nails to pummel him down to the graveled asphalt, and suspended drops become dust laden in his half-aware hazel, as the scalding warmth of the crimson soon morph into a bitter chill that sweeps forth his arched spine, all the way down his strewn heap of limbs. 

It’s not the stench of fear and death that assaults his nostrils, but it is her slumped figure upon his, as his tenaciousness doesn’t pluck him out of this wretched affliction. More than the threading link of weighed down pain that subsides the evident tremor that would make him eventually succumb to the demon of eternal slumber, it’s her emotional-fueled tears that edge him from slipping into that dark, yet comfortable fantasy becoming evermore real with the passing second. All the accumulated memories come unbidden as the fragmented shards of glass breaks through the vehement steel of death as fingers quiver their way towards the back of her neck, drawing them closer for the last time. With a sharp draw of the breath, desperation comes with such firm mold of his moistened lips, as shudders become stimulant, slipping lids become silent screams as he maps the pain from his lower lip, all the way down his gushing heart. 


	101. Chapter 101

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nigel x Mischa, Nigel's death.

He stands in the midst of his own memory palace; entirely different from his reflection’s much _grandiose_ , _intricate_ and _complex_ one. The suited, gallant and deceptively genial man with such ardent for the wicked manipulations and calculations. The devil’s poetry uttered beneath the jut of his twin’s lips. They’re of the same creations, yet entirely different with misconceptions. Perhaps he hadn’t wholly broken out of his own human chrysalis as Hannibal had been the monster with a trampled human heart, while he had been a beast with recollections of wounds. 

 

His whole world still stood in front of him like a pillar of a temple, and in slow motion, everything else becomes a blur; such insignificant existence like specks of dust floating merrily around him. In his emotionally charged hazel, the paradise aglows in his pupil, becoming a fervent fire. A rare sight upon his wretched times of recuperation as he had accepted his fostered submission, which is much easier than concocting much worse visualization of him, of himself lying face-first onto the gravelled earth, the veins draining of every ounce of blood as empty, swollen gaze reflects his shattered heart full of raging battle as the creases on his face bores every evidence of the assaulters’ infliction. _Didn’t the prospect of unequivocal triumph keep him at bay at all times?_ Even when the temptation became out of proportion, **unprecedented** , with his chance slim to none, he would still encompass his strewn limbs and woeful sorrowness.

 

That _premonition_ which he would go round the circles of limbo, his destined destination, yet his sister would be overlooking him from the celestial sky, farther away than another time and dimension, where unperturbed innocence of her would manifest into an array of ardent sunlight and unperturbed snow. 

 

“I love you, as I do now and as I would still be a lightyear past this particular universe,” he imagines hearing those words as he dreams about her every night; the occasion calls for her, yet it’s not like he requires specific circumstances or situations that would prod his armored-up heart to let the frozen, preserved sacredness of her image unfurl from his reverie. The visualization of her, just like how he imagined to be; the innocence personified becomes so real from the unreal and haunting nightmares and his entire body tingles with elation. 

 

His breaths catches in mid-air, along with his constricted chest. As if he had been savoring that moment with his enchanted hazel, completely sucked into her being as the silhouette of her becomes the dazzling string of tiny lighted globes. He smiles through white, scalding hot affliction, as charring flame sweeps him whole. Yet simultaneously, he’s accompanied and blessed with her healing breath and she’s gazing down at him with utmost radiance as he grasps those star-shaped hands he wouldn’t let go even when his limbs would be severed. 

##  **“Aš tave labai myliu.”**

 

He whispers, out of breath as his caved-in almond hazel finally gazes into the fathom of abyss, over-brimmed with decorated notes of unsung serenade and his own requiem. 


	102. Chapter 102

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nigel x Clarice, for the latter's canon birthday. <3

The evening tasted like coffee; not the first drip of dense, fragrant drops of liquid caffeine he so desired in the midst of the afternoon just after his awakening to face another mundane, what could constitute as blasé upon things unexpected and unknown, but the gritty, coarse granules that had accumulated the entire day’s distress and barrage of tumultuous emotions, as the concoction turns into a burnt motor oil against the back of his throat. And those poignant memories and youth that had been wasted so beautifully as he had been in one of his moods. The wistful nostalgia for things that were thrown out in the open. Perhaps everyone picked up those trashed strands and blossomed with their careful touches to make it better. 

He wasn’t going to blatantly admit it verbally to Clarice, even though he still couldn’t fathom how their bizarre and nonconformist relationship had propelled through the creeping cold and unforgivingly flat stare in the height of the summer,yet there had been the warmth, comfortable warmth that fills him entirely whole. No more of the dark woods, no people, only multitudes of indistinguishable shadows slanting across the dampened earth after the lingering grittiness and air of death after the funeral. The sharp-pointed leaves and painfully vertical trees splitting through the landscape, as if the limbo had surfaced through with inextinguishable, eternal fire. 

The club’s ambiance breathes the fragrance of pine, heady scents of seasonal ciders and eclectic mix of people, dressed to the nines. He himself would trip over thousands of seas, brown, hazel, blue, steely grey of her eyes along with the caresses and brushes of glittered flesh, sleek with sweat. None of the ear-splitting, seldom grating and nerve-scratching thrum of pulsating music leaves him unperturbed, as he retreats himself in his suite. 

Will he ever rise from those dampened earth and ashes? He’s encased in his usual attire, charcoal grey and burgundy beneath it; with a finger tracing the embroidered ribbon over a black box. It would be none of the glittery garment, bordering promiscuous and gaudy, that would scream her robbed identity, nor such thoughtless and impersonal conformity of categorized gifts, such as socks, cash and ugly Christmas sweaters. 

He’s uncharacteristically nervous, with a ring of sweat forming around the pressed collar against his button-down. It’s not of his usual manifestation of niceties; no weapons, no body-hugging dresses that would blatantly express his desire, or lust, for that matter. Without surrendering his hopes and hunger, a hint of play and thought of conquering over her, he had ran by his utmost instinct. She’d appreciate the craft of a virtuoso; sturdy, warp-faced textile that would never hide her voluptuousness, along with equally premium pair of sneakers that would offset her blonde curtain. Perhaps he had read off of that great escape she sought, an end to their shared tortuous longing towards what used to be. Through their delving to the core of the problem, all they had ever longed for, might have been freedom. _The total expression of their innateness._


	103. Chapter 103

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Change of Path || Nigel x Kaecilius

It’s not the swirls of stifling wind, whipping away the clinging droplets of sweat off Nigel’s glimmering skin, but the barren dryness becomes iced wind, frigid against his nakedness as the barest hint of changing season weighs down upon him with the wrecking confusion. It swallows the looming darkness, gradually slanting to blend his form into the obsidian as more onslaught of attack becomes a series of unrelenting whiplash. A full-on attack just to take him down as his determined and obstinate mentor’s succession of blows weigh at every muscle of his pressure as more he longed for the liberation, Kaecilius managed to grant it further. He isn’t _not_ aware of its consequences nor the repercussions of the lashing sweeps and thrusts of the staff towards his short and hot-tempered doppelganger and Nigel wants to remember how it feels to be so paradoxically full of _bottomless hope_ and _cynical apathy_ towards this whole process; to have so many dreams and so much fear. As his heart and head constantly burns, aches and writhes with desire. 

Nigel never knew how to pull up a white flag, nor Kaecilius ever wanted his relentlessness halt even one heartbeat; the sorcerer knew of the former criminal’s temper, along with the notorious reputation that would breach the confinement of the radius, as Kaecilius allows no more than an arm’s length for Nigel to ever get close against the space. No one in Kamar-Taj could ever land a blow against him, and there would be no exception, even more so from such green apprentice such as the man who strikingly assimilated his characteristics when he had been ushered into the gates of this unlikely sanctuary. “I recall I was able to withstand five hours of grueling sparring when I was about your standing,” words become poised as the end of Kaecilius’ staff sweeps over the back of Nigel’s wobbling legs. Breathless, Nigel’s frantic breaths rattle against the gravel-kicked barren earth as he sees whirling colors of twilight with his eyes closed. 

They’re both relatively muscled, compacted strength encased beneath the taut, tanned skin, yet it wasn’t evident, beneath all the grey robes and layers of ocher and navy garbs wrapped around his broadness, Kaecilius’ form remained in such an enigma, even to other Masters of Mystic Arts. Nigel’s body had been scattered with an impressive archive of old and new impressions, along with a constant change of emotions. Lips stained with swelled blood, his heart frantically slammed against his ribcage, along with his shivering thighs egging on pessimistic and empty hopes. “You’re making it damned fucking heart with no possible probability for me to get my goddamn ass up,” with torn skin and skinned wounds widening to press and scrape through the gritty sands, such bitterness and burning feels agglomerate beyond detonation.  

With tired hazel, heavy heart thrumming as the hide skin stretches, Nigel’s searching fingers become scythes as they dig into the dust-swept grounds of training arena. Each minute pulsations of the veins seek for his conscious in perpetuity of his physicality, yet upon all the falling stars in dark heavens, he’s sinking into a pure, rawness of the ravaged limbs and depleted intensity. “If you so desire to switch masters, I can recommend Master Mordo, who’s known as the _drill sergeant_ of Kamar-Taj. Consider yourself _lucky_ , I don’t partake in training such novices like you.” Such unfathomable lupine gaze accentuates the crevasse of Kaecilius’ hazel, as he descends onto the most improbable pupil he’s yet to take fully in his arms.

Beneath the suit of hardened armor, now linked with myriads of iron scales as he repeatedly pummel and dash against the undefendable earth, Nigel’s mind becomes a gridlocked highway and he longs to slam and smash the vehicles away, wanting to be wholly liberated. A constant moving mausoleum full of septic bruises and corroding skin. It doesn’t hurt the way he had prepared himself for, but his heart isn’t in his body as he holds onto his grasp now, preventing it from barraging through the slatted bars of his ribcage. Not sending blood to the right direction, his heart not beating the right way as he dissolves onto the ground. 

“Always training your novices with such verge of dissolution and death? It’d be fucking easy, just fucking eat me already as you’ve already done such a remarkable job of tearing me apart,” his form might have weighed down with threaded mercury drops within every inch of his veins, yet there’s something so irreplaceable here as it had been beyond his comprehension. He could overcome all of Kaecilius’ transgressions as he remains petrified in the occupying space, with one foot in, one ready to liberate. 

For the widening flesh wounds and gashes would mend as he steels up with numerous buildup of iron scales, embedded deep within his epidermal in gnawing corrosion. For now, he meets the mysticism and immeasurable depth of basilisk aubergine with a spark of intensity as tense spine uncoils, briskly picking himself up. For he still wants to run towards his past, alone and fast where he has mortal worries pressing in his head day and night as he co-exhibits with living his life and looming miasma of grim death. 

He’d burn, too close and intensely against the filigree of Kaecilius’ grandiose, destructive ripple that would echo through the watery discharge of his fluids. Words burn, so does Nigel’s latticework of scars as the other pushes him and he would attempt to crack the tenacious force field. If he had to do this forever without crumbling down the earth to contribute to the whirling maelstrom of the dust; for this is something that makes his bones stronger, his vision clearer as they repeat the same exchange. The person nor the outcome may change. Shifting, metamorphosing, to create a new path and choices to make new expressions against the world.  


	104. Chapter 104

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Your character is moved to tears. What’s a kindness that another showed to them?

As hopelessly _stubborn_ as he is, he never tries to run from the pain; never _shutting_ it out, though weeping turns into a full-on crying as scalding saltiness burns through every crevice and crack present upon his body and he’s watching those incoherent reflections crumble and shatter as walls close in - he couldn’t simply outrun pain, so he’s focusing more on embodying it. There’s so much to gain through each dream which unfurl with such fierce force, all the longing and yearning becoming shackles around his appendages. For love turns both ways; a two sides of the same coin as it makes him to prosper through that love. Leaving him unscathed, yet thorns entangle and squeeze around his heart as it aches to be touched. Violent behaviour and deep insecurity are often two sides of the same coin with everything he touches upon, both his professional and personal life. 

No, it’s not the unappreciative words of assurance from the others that would abate, or even attempting to negate such onslaught of vivid recollections and poignant emotions. He could literally feel the stress through his entire body, as if his knotted shoulders tenaciously held his usually well-composed form to bend and twist at uncomfortable positions as invisible threads wrapped him up as it cracked through his sternum. Actions matter more than words, though he could be considered a hypocrite in regard of his poetic lyricism from time to time; as silence is golden, has more potency through kiss of skins, the generated warmth, the other’s breathing as the coalesced aura would soothe and calm him further than the unfurled sounds that would simply pass through his eardrums. Forgotten, too rapturous in the somatic sensations as veins would sing, his skin would tremble. 

Never had he, embodied such pain as the love for the two women in his life scorched him to his core. There would be no pulling away emotionally, as he had never felt such pain in all his life; death and pain, homelessness and sorrow as mix of intermingled emotions bubble over his head. And in the end, it’s that shared fluctuation of the flesh, breaths and such clairvoyance of linked connection that would become the soft whistle of the song, drowning the insidiousness and the acknowledgment of that aggrevated agony, for it to become the fate of his lungs. For fear is a gate to love as it illuminates the hollowness of his heart. 


	105. Chapter 105

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A New Horizon || A Disposition of a Bravado

Some nights, he’d lie in bed sleepless and ask himself wordlessly as he chokes on the  **absence** of oxygen. The **absence** of his twin’s being, the scent of _rust_ beneath the rattling rods of steel, the _danky_ , _humid_ air of the moss-ridden walls as his lungs squeeze  **nothingness**. The view takes the light from his soul and he’s drunken on sheer _brutality_ , ripped from his own beating heart as he shreds his veins in the process. Flooding ink seeps through the agglomerated warmth and he thinks of the whirlwind of their lines, planes, angle and width and soft sighs, a summation of their growth and their breaking as their blood boils. He could only get a glimpse of it as the emptiness becomes a primal sensation among their shared blood. Stale, fervent, yet stagnant as vivid drops of ink floods from his arteries. 

A dark puddle of mixed emotions pool beneath him as he conjures up a theory of how it all should be written and archived in his memory. A tomb entirely filled with illustrated vexation and strident uproar, as a futile attempt at slowing down his pulse as the fluctuating rhythm thumps against his eardrum. Never had he thought he’d miss the sting of winter and onslaught of slurry snow on his protruded cheeks and be absolutely **still** , _motionless_ as the winds hurtle, slicing through his brittle bones and render him _stupefied_. Feeling like the stones upon his feet ― cold, unmoving, unphased yet perceiving every minute sense though it becomes white noise in the monochromatic world. Eyes _listless_ , seeped with lassitude. Trembling fingers feel **empty** , without external function; worn out palms, feeble strength, only sleepwalking through the atmosphere only as bodily function than at his command ― all the mark of his _emptiness_ and _numbness_. 

Without his customized gold-capped revolver that belongs in the hands of a determined killer, his mind **skews** and **degrades** to being a reluctant one ― still downright _deadly_ , yet reluctant and doubtful. The mark would be crude, irregular and jagged, in his deceptively heavy-hearted nonchalance and with a gaze desolate as his imminent fate, goddamnit he’ll fucking scream the words until the bullet rips through _something_ , emitting the poison in the air. Morose thoughts emerge as pale complexion tenses, jaws and taut skin tightening ever so slightly as the mind’s contusion spreads like a sinister aura, the color deep purple. A lingering, lengthening silence hangs heavy in the air, only punctuated by the sounds of his breathing and spilling emotion which can only clarified as love ― the single word in its vastness that would both mend and shatter him.

Feeling like a plucked and withering crimson rose with faint trace of metallic tang, fingers like scythes clasp tightly around the less than pristine sheets as naked emotions pour out like a crumbled hydroelectric dam. Perhaps he’s the one restrained by his ankle, helplessly hanging to prolong his sorry life by shedding tears and dribbling blood as sky pours. Moonlights upon his face, along with the cold air balances out the heated warmth pressing onward against his wavering eyes. Both the calm after the storm and the unperturbed calm after the ravaging internal conflict, which spreads across every thought and nerve as it tears through his flesh. 

##  He might be alive, _scathed_ , but still full-on self, yet he’s not _whole_. 


	106. Chapter 106

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written in Galen's POV.

He’s majestic, absolutely dazzling beneath the starlight. Lah’mu seldom gets uninhibited array of it and Galen’s broad posture, much grandeur in an embodiment of strength and perseverance become evermore grounded upon the solid rock in pensive - yet he cannot seem to shake the somatic sensation of his legs buckling and his vision swirling and swaying. What used to be an epitome of solid foundation, of his form becomes riddled with cracks and crevices, though he stands immobile against the winds and rains and whips of whirling dust. _Had he bled enough of stories of failure and lived through, hugging each one of his cracks as he had been left in the impenetrable dark?_ How he longed to be simply abandoned, forgotten behind mountains of achievements as he delves into unperturbed peace. 

Yet, he finds his aura spilling the long-hatred and a cornucopia of emotions that could only be described as twilight nostalgia. Of the innocent times when he had trusted himself upon the strength, power, unfathomable greatness. He’s closer to falling into the abyss he had dreaded as his form vehemently never rolls towards it. If he could become a frail wisp of a thing like a stardust. Fighting against all odds and fly away in absolute liberation, be spirited away without all the dragging worry of politics and ongoing war - as much as he wants to shake the thought away, he knows Jyn would be in the midst of it, perhaps the most ugliest, worst part of the wreck if he couldn’t thwart what was coming to him. 

His form had long gone fallen, wrenched away from the barren desolateness and still quantum tranquility of the farmland - now all he could get is ephemeral peace upon the incessant windows of ferocity bumping at his figure as his anxieties, along with his brevity alarming through the echoes of uneasy silence. It might not be the most graceful thing he had achieved in the midst of the tumultuousness and teetering brink of annihilation, yet he could still break through the ghost of the violent winds and search for those cracks that previously threatened to consume him whole. 

The thin stream of breeze would be enough to be pushed through, chase away his lingering doubts as he summons up that very brevity, the courage which he had instilled upon the defected pilot. Now, his only fear, the greatest fear is his stardust might NOT be alive, as that very fortuitous wind steals the wind from his panicked lungs - yet he entrusts Saw’s ability as her rightful guardian. “My stardust, if you are listening to this, there are so many things I wish to tell you. Upon all the rolling thunders and lightning, I had found my heart brim with the thoughts of your passed mother and most importantly, the thoughts of you -” 

No bared claws and fangs and monstrous winds of the Empire would snuff out his valiant effort to bring hope and his eventual demise - he only meekly wishes to find the meaning, the valor upon the heartfelt message he carries. He might not have the unbearable power of the kyber crystal, yet what seemed to be wedged beneath his heart would be just enough of a push - to overcome the brutality of this world. 


	107. Chapter 107

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Esperance || written in Gabi's perspective.

It hadn’t taken long for Gabi to come to a realization, the _poignancy_ of the echoing words “ **Nigel’s died** ,” to embed into the deep recess of her mind, only to be translated to “ **Nigel is dead.** ” There had been a _subtle_ , yet a _considerable_ difference as an abundance of his existence and influence continued to cloud his thoughts, _reconfiguring_ her emotions. It both healed and broke her. How her aspirations had been empowered by his unfathomable depth of the hazel, along with the sincerity of his rough affection, that Nigel healed her soul of a broken past, only to be broken again. She misses that wobbly twin bed and laying on it with him that was painfully small to fit them both comfortably. Such a nuisance became the place where their deepest talks and passionate sex and the most intimate cuddles occurred and surely, some of her most fondest memories of him took place there. Just a little more space was all she yearned for, yet now he wants to close what used to be light years since his abrupt, yet wholly expected departure. 

Even the _fraction_ of their separation meant something sublime and grandeur. Betrayed by the poured words, ever so shining with sincerity as the broken instrument, of his **shattered heart** , as it rammed into his ribcage within the fire in his _terror_ ; of his **being**. No longer does he exercise his control through the masquerade as his crestfallen gaze looks upon her with such ravaged brokenness. A disheartened and defeated warrior with a requiem over the stifling heat and rippling neon dazzle of the Bucharest summer. A thud breaking the earsplitting bang as he sinks with blooded nails under the naked rusty metal of his curled fingers. Not the same determination and vigor towards their entwined fingers, but of strident chords in jagged progressions. Like the biting wind hurtling off the floor, he exits with such vehemence - as he had entered through her and swallowed him hole. Every note for every eased breath by the dawning elixir. Nigel would’ve always known that there was more than one sun; for this particular sun forgot to ever sink beneath the horizon, only to be burning bright little too fast. 

It’s as if she’d been _possessed_. Sliver of Nigel’s hazel, along with such poignant scene and sentimentality of imperceptive etch upon his splendeur become a continuity. Especially after Charlie’s death - a fucking overdose. Of the same cock and bend of the limbs, a hint of defeat and doomed fate. Obviously, the person controlling their strings had been, themselves, yet she couldn’t completely fathom if she had been the devil in those cruel moments. Too much hearts to spill in the world that doesn’t value nor desire such dedication. She had stopped playing cello, for her heart strayed and flickered out of tune as fingers quivered. She could almost hear him _humming_ , softly under his breath in his **nakedness** \- and she wonders if Nigel saw the same _overexposed_ images of them in spinning white and blue as such natural, comfortable silence, stretching through staccatoed notes becoming a constant loop beneath the clear sky.

As she suspends in time, between two considerably significant eras of her life, she wonders if Nigel would still be there in her vicinity to offer her a roar of thunder, or even a slightest hint of devotion as his name becomes synonymous with loss and hurt, remorse and inner realm of her thoughts. His every word, action, movement, thought becomes her pain and in return, becomes her healing, acceptance and ill-timed love. And in that moment, in the midst of a dark and mysterious path, she feels a whisper, the small flame fluctuating within her heart that compels her to continue through the unknown realm. 


	108. Chapter 108

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nigel x Clarice. Clarice joins in the shower with Nigel after their 'argument.'

Dark clouds retract and quiver beneath him as he watches a continuous whirl of diluted crimson, creating a vortex around the length of his long legs, caress him with the burning _warmth_ and scent of the **bitter rust** ; the tide had rose in defiance and taken him whole. The power of waves crashing into his reverie, which couldn’t be silenced, for such current had the power to leave him restless as thunder in the sky would orbit him in a constant circle. Yet, he hadn’t taken a step back and found himself transported to his ruthless past, for Alexandru and Nicolae to meet their gruesome fate - yet he’s merely dreaming of it happening through his own canvas. He can’t be _disappointed_ , he can’t be _hurt_. **_Not again._**

Above all the curiosities to ponder, it had been his zealous **paranoia** ; this entity so _ethereal_ and _gravitational_ , that he could not have fathomed its existence, let alone waited for it or wanted it. For his love is so tunnel-visioned and **explosive** , that he simply forgets to be planetary - encompassing a broader spectrum and seeing the bigger picture. It was more like a race he has to win, something of a _beautifully orchestrated_ **chaos** out of all the hurting and heartbreak. 

In his pondering time and its inevitability as the cascade grasps all of his senses, he misses another corporeality wiping all the concerns and all of his bold wildness his heart continues to bear. For he’d be the most untamable stallion and Clarice his jockey, for she alone would proclaim the unpent feelings that pump within his heart. And he doesn’t have to vocalize those out, for they overbrim and flood within the rim of his irises. 

 


	109. Chapter 109

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nigel as Icarus.

_ disintegrating and plummeting head-first into the **unforgiving** earth   
_ _ as his fiery and fervid intenseness remain too **ephemeral**    
_ _ to match the **sempiternal** heat   
_ _**incinerating** and **ravaging** through his appendages,   
_ _ finally melting his **core** as he pulverizes   
_ _ the man with the **golden** hair and god-like **chiseled** face   
_ _**conflagrating** hazel unravel a curtain   
_ _ his **convincing** story sheds light in the most ethereal way   
_ _ a ruthless **bliss** , stuck in a captivated trance of delicate **admiration**  
_ _ the same feeling summoned when   
_ _ he finally had finally **liberated** himself   
_ _ nothing would muffle his heartbeat   
_ _ as ground no longer feels steady - for weeping blood   
_ _ caresses his heart to sleep as a devout **devotee**    
_ _ in the span of the lightyear where he’d be **incomplete** , scattered in the distance   
_ _ when the end of the thousands of years has come   
_ _ our soul will once again **entangle** as one   
_ __ until then…

##  _wait for me._


	110. Chapter 110

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pygmalion and Galatea || A Disposition of a Bravado
> 
> Nigel x Gabi

There’s no better remedy for **chaos** and **disorder** than to let it divert its course;  
a strange - too _familiar_ yet too _strange -_  feeling overwhelms him  
and grips his heart tight - the _darkness_ inside of him being gulped by something bright.  
as he paints her with his words, in loose **syllables** and colorful **synonyms**. 

of his fervent furnace of flame, with coppery tint of his lionheart.   
wholeheartedly investing and reciting her exquisiteness with emotional energy   
It seems to _paralyze_ him through his affections,  
a guaranteed investment he could get both vulnerable and dominant in. 

a unification as he plummets, letting the gentle surge of sparks curl at the base of his spines   
letting it sit idle beneath his pulsating flesh, running rampant through the sheets   
gloss their lips with the fresh coat of the morning   
as inch by deliciously exquisite inch, as brittle bone, but soft to touch 

reverberating ebb and flow coming apart at the seams  
rolls off their tongues, a _sultry music_ recorded in his memory   
as the column of their throats drawing enough,   
running **freely** of their course. 

Always on the edge of death as she stretches his reverie - endless, flawless, illustrious   
On the edge of the **bliss** and **euphoria** , he scrambles for her flesh,   
clutching everything he could - as everything reduces into a blur -   
leaving him with the _unfurling_ vision of her. 

every **vibration** , every quake of his heart, a _sonic isolation_  as he isolates and confines   
only to her. He becomes her - breathes _resurgent_ , chambers of his diaphragm   
 **swelling** beyond the cavity of his chest   
as jaws open with _bafflement_ of the **world** , _wordless_  

as _deafening_ **silence** overwhelms him as muscles continue to clutch harder onto her,   
everything becomes a _soft dream  
_ between his blinking, a low growl in his voice uttered against   
the hollow of her neck. 

“You paint the night sky on my back and pull the fucking _ocean_ closer,   
as I lace within my own **vulnerability** while you put myself back together  
and how your _fucking love_ fills me as I give myself away to you.   
You, the **creator** and I, your **masterpiece**.”  


	111. Chapter 111

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Galen Erso's POV.

There’s a blizzard in his body and he’s not trying to panic. Ever too composed and nonchalant, the warmth residing within him threatens to push through the frozen slatted ribs as it continues to expand and swell. Galen’s so used to the storm-stricken world of Eadu, with no ounce of sunlight that would turn into a manifestation of his condition. Flecks of snow crystals on his eyelashes, frost covering his once voluptuous and loving lips. Icicles smothers his mouth, too cold to taste of anything. Maybe he would choke on the metallic bitterness, the twang of his blood first, but he’s become so unkind to his body while he stalls the development of the deadly weapon with all of his effort. 

The world around him still seem so unreal and he doesn’t bother to hide in the shadows anymore - he already breathed much and all he could taste is gritty coarseness of soot and ash. Beneath the phosphorescence of the soft-emitting lights, he summons enough of his valiant and brevity to seclude himself from the scrutinization of the Empire, as he breaches through the contagiousness of the cold, as the thought of his Stardust occupies every inch of his body. He couldn’t bare the thought of Jyn drown beneath the cold dark mountains and freeze over his innate fire. 

He’s deceptive and believable enough, as he had learned the craft of lying, something that hadn’t been ingrained within his DNA. It turns out that there’s hot blood within him after all, as the strings of his careful construction breaches the high-surveillance, concurrently planting the calamitous flaw within the system that would bypass all the other scientists and developers. And when he finally speaks with all of his summoned courage, he finds his frostbitten lips thaw with blazing warmth and his complex, foggy mind unfurling in the absence of tepidity. His throat burns with first throaty words, as his zealous passion to bring the terror-inducing galactic empire down begins with his resilient step. 


	112. Chapter 112

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Unfinished Novel || Nigel x Gabi

There was once a chapter in his life where almost everyone waited for an update of each of his chapter. He loved the fact that he had been _notoriously_ **significant** , even the minutest move, his maneuver and carrying out his task would be important. He wasn’t no longer merely existing in the world like when he had been an adolescent. Wasting his life away in a dark place, yet something keeps him going, something _diminishes_ the **blue** and his heart would surely and steadily reflect a **beautiful light**. No, it’s not the concept of falling in love, but making _fear_ to be both of his closest friend and his worst enemy. He wouldn’t let it turn himself as a constant _worrier_ , but he’d overturn the dark, vehement tidal wave to make a  **warrior** of himself. 

 

Scar tissue is tougher than the normal flesh, though most anything sweet would bring a lapse of _bitterness._  He’s trying to **endure** , through the glittering twilight and over at the edge, through waking up and remembering. He invites both the starlight and the dust, the musty dank of the stale blood and rust into his little gasps and grasps. The first touch with outside air in the morning remains _stinging_ and _unbearable_ , yet so **blissful**. Almost as if the world is welcoming the new day with its harsh, yet loving _embrace_. An overwhelming instant, as he remains beneath the blue veil at the absolute beauty and melancholy of everything; even through his healing. 

 

The empty and shallow soul he once had held onto would finally rip open with the notes of love. So he can finally rip the vessel open and let his soul pour out to say he wasn’t lost in the sentences anymore. No more bad thoughts that would burn his head, but the ones that would rekindle the fire within him, burning out the moment his and her lips touched, as the closure of distance would make his heart grow **fonder**. Through the paradox of trust and doubt, his whole life depends on the gentle unforeseen stream of unfurled _syllables_ of  **mellifluousness**. Holding these photographs of the visualized, as his motor-like heart beats continually, refusing to be forgotten. The pain would heal, the time would do its supposed duty as it would act as a shot of _adrenaline_. 

 

For hers had wandered back into his chest, weaving through his ribs and soon, _electrifying_ hazel collides shut upon endless **staccato** of their mingling lips, and behind all of his closed darkness behind the welled-up abyss where complete darkness resides, he lets the light seep into him. The swallowed and captivated loneliness becomes a still drawing, burning over the edges as such taxed emotions disappear. Concurrently, as he **emblems** with such souvenirs that would entirely make him hers, his own grounding and fevered impression engrains in his mind and etches in his soul. An endless exploration to become _ambulatory_ upon her alabaster flesh, as his hands become shadows contouring and hollowing her out whole. With one of her wrists still bound close to her head, the other hand freely roams. His territory, coalescing and levitating into nothingness as more articles fly off from their trembling, sweating bodies. 

 

However, the luminous lucidity would obscure beneath the drawn curtain, of painted clouds of before. No more of his spirit shines with silvery incandescence as he lets her go, as she left him with a **dream**. Yet he would always have her be a part of his life. So he _chases_ her, but he let her go as the stories failed to sing the sweet songs of the **morning glory.** It entirely  _consumes_ him, as all he could think about is how they could’ve had it all. The smiles which they could share if she had simply opened her heart all to him and realize that the love they are capable of having will be the type that would repent all the sinners, just like him, to feel as if they finally reached their **acceptance**. 

 

And losing her was like losing half of his heart, yet both _halves_ still beat with purpose. The half which she had taken along with her had been **thriving** , growing stronger than ever beneath the caress of the serenade, yet the half he keeps would shrivel up and wilt. Shrunk and struggling to keep itself up with the brewing **hellfire** within him. Still, the _vehemence_ of the heatwave would stifle, as the absence of her would snuff out the flame. There’s no  **control** with her, nothing is controlled and attempted even with her. For she had scarred him  **deep** , the lioness’ claws upon the slatted ribs, shredded apart but allowing it to happen. The sweet song still remains within the reveries of his subconscious. 

 

For he’d consent to happen, squeezing his lungs and hurt them as he breathes too hard. As he flattens close to the darth as he breaths for the last time. Then the first time in the midst of his _rescue_. **Rebirth** , a different kind of _levitation_ and _liberation_ as each exhale hugs so dreadfully strong against his limp limbs. He’s **paralyzed** , with the butterflies still flapping their eager wings in his stomach as it writhes every single part of him. Even without a word escaping his mouth, no matter how much he ached to scream, he would hold onto the motionless pages, empty and void of untold stories. And the familiarity of the feeling strikes him, building anticipation as he would stumble upon her again, _broken-heartedly_ , promising to give her more. 


	113. Chapter 113

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unrequited || Nigel x Gabi   
> In Gabi's POV.

**** He was a **broken man** I could never fix, with a _bellow_ of a wounded beast, maybe a some kind of **extinct animal** lingering beneath the surface of him. With cracked ribs and expanding lungs, he breathes and feels too much, in his _raw_ and _opaque_ candor. Raised by **agony** , soldered in **hellfire** , nurtured by tears and sweet serenade. The dagger had been pressed too close to his heart, tomorrow almost stripped away from him as the painted crimson path almost brittled his adamantine bones - he had said my plucking averted the ruinous eternal burning flame from reducing him to ashes.  

And he had stated that he was my _responsibility_ , for I had put all the sharp puzzle pieces together and smoothed his jaggedness. Only with the same **fervency** of fire, there could be life within the burnt **ravageness**. For I pulled his _miasma_ back until the sky opened up, casting the radiance of the blue sky, peeking through as the sun begins to empty itself against the emptiness of his danky flat, lighting up the _desolation_ that only knew of the darkness. 

**Hope** is a _flame_ for sure, but no flame could escape the all-encompassing, weighty blanket of reality. For he was an _intoxicated_ stranger treading down the unwinding road I didn’t have the strength to follow. Even deep in the **silence** of our hearts, a story like ours never gets told in all truth and honesty with constant shifts. If he had only loved half as much as people say he would… For he came like an untamed stallion and I was ready for more of a tamed animal in domesticity.

His hazel, reflecting the infernal flame of a Promethean vehemence contained galaxies, his heart, so vast and unending as incessant dust trailed his ghost town and his being, always frenetically moving at the same speed as concorde flight, with a drive of the turbojet engine - supersonic, strident bellowing of belligerency. A warm soul tainted by the winds of a hurricane; and he moves like the lightening that rips apart the earth as his anger thrummed in his veins, aching for him to explode.  

With my heart already a broken patchwork project, so much of him exhausted my essence. I was already on the verge of coming undone, falling apart at seams. And I was his victim. Perhaps his wrongdoing had been a kamikaze mission from the start - for I did not know if I would ever make it out alive. But I could hear something snap within him and I let go of the part of me that he had tamed into obedience. I had to dig my roots away from his life, taking hold of it in slow pull, then a gradually more forceful tug. _He’d surely notice it by now._

I wanted his heart to clump together, sewn back together, but he couldn’t anymore - for he had been a completely shattered man who couldn’t barely hold himself together than I could put my ruinous being together. _How can I follow my heart’s content when my own feet buckles every time?_ Clock struck midnight and I was drunk with sad melodies. _How ironic that the same tunes become so sorrowful and empty?_ Nothing could fill these empty gaps and endless holes of my crumbled heart, for my hands are stained with his blood, for I had shot him down. 

And he’d be always lost in overthinking it like always. Yet I can best describe him as the city itself; full of chaos, fervent excitement, downpour of neon lights and visceral life, but desolate, deserted and dark like the late hours of the night. Most importantly, _gritty_ , _raw_ beauty lose in the complexity of his temperamental, rebellious spirit. A man who had dissented from his resolute philosophy. 


	114. Chapter 114

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Withering Ash || Nigel x Mischa   
> Léon the Professional AU.

Words breathed the **suppressed** **emotions** from long ago, like a repeated film reel, loose around the center, edges flaking apart with the cumulated time between them. It certainly hadn’t been _long_ , yet their aura lathers with the smell of **death** and **bliss** ; fresh soap, dull, expired perfume, the rain painting their skins with blurry visions of the robbed future the remains well within the deep haze, most importantly, a **hollow emptiness** resting inside their charged windows of the souls. Secrets that he had contained within his _brave_ , yet _battered_ soul pours and spills, **inevitable** and **irreversible**. Pliant and stretching, but ripping and fraying as his soul remains cracking, torn, burnt. His body whole, _marred to the core_.

The broken eyelashes upon his lid drip with **forlorn bitterness** , as salt liquid contours and scalds down his sculpted face. The gleam of the ever-so-sharp blade had thrusted and twisted within the slatted bars of Hannibal’s ribcage, the cascade of thick crimson surging onward with the sparkle of potential, ensuring he wouldn’t be the only one who’d collapse onto the floor. He’d lost the _battle_ , but not the **war** \- and he hears all the sounds, _amplified_ through blackening peripheral. _Frustration swells_ , flowing through his own wound as incessant rush of spectacle becomes a fountain, bounding him in his **darkest despair.** Frigid coldness and infernal hellfire coalesces, his eyes never _concealing_ the vocalization as he lets his pupils speak before reserving all of his energy as he gradually withers.

The narrow hallway swells with two adversaries’ frenetic breaths, _strained_ , _agonizing_ , **snapping** with each passing second. He’s only setting himself alight just to feed the fire, burning aura of him peeling his flesh as a strange comfort washes his form; how his bones melt, because Mischa will be warm, he’d be the shortened candle stub that would sacrifice himself in order to emit the last _illumination_ that’d send both of them home. He’d follow her back home as a quiet voice in her head, all the **archives** of their _happiness_ like the ocean that pours through. 

He chokes on the sadness he could no longer hold; he lies naked with a sense of **solitude** , no one would know where he’s headed and neither does she. There are no street signs and the familiarity of the neon, **strobing** in mellow _ripples_ , nor the calm _ebb and flow_ of the music itself. The weathered hands, rough and veined closes around Mischa’s childlike hand. That quivering lip, those eyes to the sky as he memorizes every groove and intricacy of the trenches beaten into her skin thanks to their shared craft. He winces and the dam breaks - the **excoriated** petals stain with his own warmth, bound to mark his being _sempiternally_ onto the very earth which he had been soldered and resurgent.   

“If we ever meet again after all this time, I can still tell you exactly what I smelled before existing upon the realm of torment and bliss - the freshly washed linen dress that hugs porcelain immaculateness, the smell of gunpowder tracing the groove of your fingers as you’ve held me, fleeting scent of _mischievousness_ like that dandelion in the field that’s lost in the wind. 

Here, in this fucking **shipwreck** , between the chambers of our lungs and our bodies, we’d forever remember the day we had fallen in love with being **alive** and being with _each other_.”

It’s a painful **revelation** , as he lets go of her hands that remain the sole anchor out of all the looming death in the horizon, and profound grief that had been collecting pieces of himself. And how warm and sincere that had been, how Mischa had taken his fantasy and made them whole. It’s as if walking away, leaving a trail of memories and mementos in his wake. The embers drain from his hazel, a last flick upon her face before his parted, swollen lips translate, to become the manifestation of their unmendable hearts.   


	115. Chapter 115

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unfettered || Nigel x Clarice

His eyes fail to adjust to the dark as his **pulsating** view, expanding with swelling strobes of the floating sunlight. The first thing he perceives is that of pressing warmth, lithe muscles writhing right beside him as fingers clasp around his biceps, painting a dramatic coral over his coppery expanse. She takes his breath away, almost crushing with her _petiteness_ ; though, it gradually becomes a **lethal embrace** as he folds into _time_ and _space_ \- perhaps he had been a **black hole** as she drifted just out of his _event horizon,_ sucked right in. He wears haloes of the stars as sleep-laden hazel bears slivers of **incandescent** illuminance with _love_. She looks as if whispering into those very stars, walking in the **midnight air** , wrapped in mystery and clad only in the shade armored in sky. 

So he strides in the sunlight, contouring his scalding warmth up her golden cascade as they begin the great dance. They would embody the **fervency** of the midnight city, with _passion_ and _kindness_ that none can compare. They become the embodiment of light kisses trailing the dark, like trailing **constellations** and become a divine moment of bleeding dawn, spilling onto their nakedness with the sweetest of longing and candor _viscerality_. Clad only in black as they wear the colors so well; even within the flickering flames passed upon them, he could see the light of her. Maybe he wouldn’t burn with so much intensity if so much of fire wasn’t **reminiscent** of her deep blue-grey. He’s the **bleeding beauty** of the kindled fire and blazing heat, and she’s the commingled form of **burnt** and **dusted blue** , the _stellar collision_ upon the galaxy as they celebrate the _vanishment_ , only to rebuilt upon the latticework of their limbs. 

How she gives him life and how he loves her; how he becomes the concept of love for her as he worships her in adoration. Was it _instinct_ that his fingers glide along the planes of her back, leaving **impressions** , bruises and lashes painted in streaks? Was it _instinct_ that he swirls her cascading waterfall of milky way, becoming lush impasto upon his nape that becomes a anchor upon what seemed inescapable **darkness** and he’s on top of her in the most unexpected and exquisite way? How she has stolen his heart and his hands as they conduct the same, _synchronized_ **orchestration** of their muscles and flesh. 

The **freedom** , the liberation as they burst intermittently, the entirety of his body captivating his senses as she sinks upon him like a deluge - flooding his orifices and seeping into his pores. The sunlight blinds him, his eyes take too long to adjust, yet he’d waste not even a second of this _exquisite_ bliss. The **juxtaposition** of scents nauseating, _overwhelming_ as they become the **vivacious** **vibrancy** of the city. He brushes her hair, seeking closure upon the sensuous curve of her jaw as he conforms his profile like a surfing torrent. 


	116. Chapter 116

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A neutral ending to Nigel x Gabi story (canon).

If his _accumulated_ pain could be reduced to mere scraped elbows and knees as his own  **crestfallen** sorrow could mend and mold together like the clasping flesh with a threading suture, he’d risk his entirety of being _susceptible_ to  **infection** to be healed with a sensitive scar tissue. All the **deliverance** of his unfettered rage, spilled emotions of incinerating candor as incandescent ablaze revolves in the sky like the howling night wind. Yet, they become the syllables of the saddest lines he’d ever written in elaborate _poeticism_ ; _he loves her and sometimes she loves me, too_ , or more accurately, _she used to love him_. 

‘ _Used to_ ’ equals ‘ _not anymore_ ’ and he finds it unfathomably difficult to let go of that sentiment, yet he has to. He’d strip away the one whom she loves, in order for him to carry on his **sustenance**. 

Through the nights like this, where the _stuffy_ Bucharest air seeps with dusty neon glows that continued to flicker and emit strobing illuminations etch through the endless sky, he misses the **depthless** eyes of Gabi’s deep grey, encased beneath the porcelain flesh and jet-black line, incomparably more fathomless than the overhead midnight blue. To think that he doesn’t have her and he has lost her _entirely_. To drown with such **poignant** stretch of emotions, longing for what they would’ve become if it weren’t for the runty cunt, reflecting the _unadulterated_ love of his blatantly **innocent** days before his crude lawless fall. 

It drenches his soul as his void deepens further, alongside another loss from his earlier days. A **surreptitious** admission that he hadn’t revealed, not even to his darling Gabi. _What does it matter that his love couldn’t keep her?_ The night had already been long shattered and what used to be such exquisite bliss and a rapturous moment of shared breaths and being has completely gotten lost beneath the residing brew of inferno. 

And such concocted **chaos** would unfurl his schemes. _If he couldn’t have Gabi, Gabi couldn’t have Charlie._ A wicked Hammurabi’s Code orchestrated with his fingers. Charlie’s descend down the dark mountainous stream of hydroelectric dam, along with the unfurled crimson ribbons spewing from his frenetic heart signifies another one of his absconding and he could simply entail his disappearance and not look back. He had exacted his personal vendetta, so as difficult as the fatal promise he once promised upon himself, he would risk the kiss of death in his whim and only his whim. 

For everyone is able to understand the **power** and **freedom** and **protection** of love. And he needs it for his own _sanity_ and _perseverance_. 


	117. Chapter 117

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An Untold Story || flashback  
> Nigel before meeting Gabi.

 

**I.**

 

Instead of the screaming kettle or the incessant dripping of the grounds, emitting such deep and complex fragrance of the dark roasted coffee, the bursting radiance of the sunlight probes into the resilient carapace of Nigel’s sprawled form. Feeling the beads of moisture along his upper lip and the back curve of his neck, his head barely moves and his fingers don’t even budge with attempted efforts. They seem to ponder in **wobbling** **steps** , as they stagger around midst of nothing. The strobing world, undulating in _mantra_ of hubbub outside the portico becomes reminiscent of the long-faded night full of **frantic energy.** He had stayed lost between worlds flying across his mind like migratory birds heading north for the stifling summer heat. How he misses that of the _Lithuanian_ winter in that regard, despite the pained squeeze upon his heart; for the world will not **coddle** him and treasured memories he had accumulated like the finest china couldn’t entirely save him. They will only haunt him until he saves _himself_.

There’s the slightest, provoked delicacy upon his boyish innocence, hidden beneath his resilient **grimness** that’s _accentuated_ by the removed sangfroid indifference and an air of irksomeness, only reserved for the early hours. He becomes that indistinguishable line running parallel between the edge of **awareness** and **oblivion** , a _ghost_ , a _whisper_ , a slowed blink that would intermittently still in **paroxysm** and fleeting _gratification_ of a lulled sleep. His lips draw together as if he had the smoke between them, taking an imaginary, deep drag, then feels his tense throat muscles ache with gravelly surface dragged upon a bed of glass shards. None of the windows are open and the lingering heat and humidity of the night clings onto him like an invisible cloak. It **pummels** him to stay there and he feels the most delicate and almost fragile than ever.

His breath continues to slip softly as _incorporeal_ energy residing within him as a residual source continues to burn. His own form **metamorphosing** into that faceless shadow as he lacks even language as his resignation, his _abandonment_ , would leave him alone again. But his corporeality is already there to push him beyond that edge of the realm, with him painfully aware of that quiet yet determined touch. Another shove on his back to **disburden** the load. Even when he’s at most powerless, his _appendages_ , _face_ , _tongue_ that bristles with dryness even when it feels sun-baked would remain expressive with raw candor. Putting down obstinate _protestation_ as he relents, droplets of fleeting caress soon becomes mayflies crowding inside his open wounds and gadflies penetrating through the murky **stillness** of his eyeballs.

His body is one thing as it seemed to have acquired some kind of magnetic force as the act itself becomes so detached from his **consciousness**. _Like a soul without eyes_ , his skin already dyed the color of deep rust as pulsing tremor propels the unignorable fact that he was indeed alive and would most likely live as he always had. As his heart gradually calms down and he stops shaking his distressed ribs, his lungs raw as he still unsafely wears his armor. Armored by the empowering scent that comes crashing into his way, it sweeps him whole and he’s able to crack a little hopeful smile. With each **passing second** , the ceased world comes alive. _One stroke at a time._

A slow **ascension** , as these snapshots of moments they had shared will collide and rush past them, yet he manages to continually squander all of that precious time on such frivolous things, doing what he was known in his notoriety. For he is _nothing_ to eternity, his body would be literally deteriorating by the second in an **unavoidable** **truth** of all. The scents of the night before tells him that there had been connections, not necessarily **unification** and  **understanding** ; a connectivity between person to person and he’s residing somewhere outside of this. He can’t touch nor feel it anymore, as if it had been a current that had been constantly moving. And he’s _reaching_ for it, trying to become enough of himself into its flow, but he can’t quite make it. There’s aspirin within an arm’s reach and he’s quick to reach for two pills, swallowing dry before the steaming water cools marginally enough for the jut of his parched lips to close against the rim of the glass.

## 

**II.**

 

The bubbling fire seems endless and non-tiring, as it dries every inch of his vein to mimic the fissuring crack upon sun-dried earth. His form, _face forgotten_ , a facade more like wind-eroded stone already having rolled within sun-sustained clouds and as if he had been reactive against the retained sunrays, his entirety would ache as bright as the afternoon sun as the lingering imperative continues to **agglomerate**. The intertwined pain draws the bridge of his nose and his forehead together as an airy affliction sweeps around his aura as his fragile verticals of ribs flutter and contract with much effort. He’s _abnormally_ quiet for someone who had suffered a life-threatening injury, as almost imperceptible rise and fall of his chest and an **intermittently** exhales turning into a series of whizz confirms his life still clings onto his heart and soul. All alone, a body broken as lungs filled to burst with needs to discharge all unspoken words and pain, for his heart is like a **sieve** ; _nothing left to lose and nothing left to give_.

Instead of his facial expression doing the silent, yet dramatic talking, it’s the condensed teardrop, still clinging onto the corners of his eyes as they turn into emotional-ridden corrosive acid upon the close-call, dreary yielding of his fate as he reluctantly lets that go. Yet, his mind continues to race, as it had been a fundamental human instinct; a dull headache, **exponentially** increasing that it almost feels like he’s being desiccated from inside out, as he becomes a _mummified human remain_. Growing **hypersensitive** as the expanse of his skin yells and howls in continuous echoes and those agonized nerves and synapses scatter and cling onto him in every nook and cranny. The salt drips linger upon the empty lips, failing to utter nothing more than steaming vent of the dormant volcano as his life still sticks stubbornly to his insides. Lightyears of hallucinations, a ticking clockwork beats against his tympanums and dazzling ink drops, become scalding hot magma upon his skin, burrowing their way down to gnaw at his brittle bones as they become undulating glass work. _Stretching, melting, expanding,_ **disintegrating** until a continuous clangor exhibits resonance as the horizon undulates and the star-scattered sky slants. Tipping over even though he is still as an unperturbed lake without a single trace of life visible.

Ensorcelled in _desolation, disbelief_ and _self-annihilation_ , the weaved **torpidity** fails to arouse his somatic cells immediately. Yet, his eyes ripple through the blurriness and clears immediately, and endless sparks traverse through his cords and veins, along with an accompaniment of wretched pain. No more raw, snapshot recollections within his head. It’s all in his head, a mirage of eternal slumber. Fluttering, yet slowly and gradually regaining strength, his talon-like fingers clutch upon the creased sheets, retaining his most rotting **putridness**. As if the blanket had been clumps of vines, _entangling_ and _restricting_ him to be mobile and each suture had been the invisible shackle weighing him down to ram back towards the mattress. Dragging him down to the depth and holding him captive.

Sleep had been his enemy from the start and now, he’d been forced into it thanks to the rushing surge of alcohol and fatigue. In a way, he was getting killed from all sides without any power to fight back, forcing him to either give up or try and stay awake as this wouldn’t heal him, but bring the contagious disease down a notch, allowing him to live a little longer in **impervious** haze. The wind continues to sing _lullabies_ in many voices, full of **vibratos** and **tremors**. Slowly, nimbly as invisible fingers pulled him open, pushing down into the pit of nothingness to strike thousands of kisses of matchsticks to set him on fire in a prison beneath his skin. The tunes glare with a fiery, yet glowing poignancy and without a single uttered words, it becomes an instant **gratification** , an _impressive_ and _expressive_ **obsession**.

It had the personality of a **sunshine** , an orange feisty spunk, as well as the whispering caress of warmth. Sometimes a well-balanced mix of two, yet most often, all the emotional speed bump has him rendering between unhindered laughter and screams of his being. Supposedly, it’d be better than the neutrality of his _monochromatic_ world, blowing and snuffing out as the air **bends** , the earth **warps**. Still, even when he remains unnoticed to the world for his diminishing existence renders useless and the world doesn’t recognize his _spectrum_ , he keeps on illuminating and the weight of the scale tilts by the radiance of the tempo and the music. A **mirage** running down upon his form like a blanket and he’s able to breath, cope with the beauty of the world that hadn’t astounded him before.


	118. Chapter 118

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Five words + tenderness.   
> Nigel x Gemma (an OC)

**i.** His heart used to lie _somewhere_ else, with _someone_ else, yet he’s not sempiternally chained to her like **Prometheus**. For he’s done trying _claiming_ what’s not palpable and _chase_ through the heavy haze, that would render his efforts futile. Yet, such fear becomes an essence of his pool of sorrow, a never-ending fork in the road he couldn’t simply disregard. He doesn’t take much to be alight with flames, for he yearns to light fires to the passionate ones that gets drawn to his cold-hearted exterior, only to see beneath his guarded steel that hides the vulnerability of him, who had been starved for affection and prosperous life to those whom have never felt the burning caress of his touch; _lips upon lips, body to body and flawed soul to another flawed one._  And the solemn silence is **reassuring** and **contemplative** , as their intimacy, commanding teetering of dominance and a sense of ownership intensifies as his heartbeat threatens to push through already fully-expanded ribcage. It had been long overdue for their course of actions and its consequences would present itself to be the source of clearing their feelings and every single touch and breath burns through the strands of his muscles. Gemma’s _plumage_ , the tip of the softened fluff tickles against the long-healed sensitive pink, above the soldered copper and how easy it is for his downtilt lips to ascend for once. Not everything has **meaning** , yet every single _tease, tickle_ elicits such stimuli that he wasn’t blessed in his life. He smiles **radiantly**. 

**ii.** He’s reached an _impasse_ , a stalemate and such anger resembles as much as it does his passionate drive. He’s done a lot of thinking in these eternal **hellfires**. Too fucking much that his cranium burns. An _incessant headache_ persists through the day and night and he’s sleepless. As if his aggressor had been hiding and lurking, eager to open up his viscera once more  ****as the fragmented montage fails to serve his purpose. He could feel the ground rattle as the carpeted floor seem to ripple beneath him as he metamorphoses into a wavering torchlight, threatening to be put out as the skin itself surges and crackles with the retained heatwave through the particularly sultry day. Time continues to move and less and less memories clarify with **veracity**. His world was upheld by his _unimpeachable_ **discernment** and he absolutely abhorred of having those gaps. Yet, the idea of unknown is exquisitely beautiful, as he cannot move backward through and reminiscent the infiniteness. Never concrete like the cemented walls towering upon the establishment. So again, he finds himself in the confines of her smaller frame, as her finger cards through his ash blonde locks as a gentle pressure upon his scalp gradually takes away that familiar, unpleasant pain behind his slipped shut lids. Sleep comes effortlessly that night, with absence of tenseness and guarded virulency of a watchful dog. 

**iii.** F _is for flying_ and Gemma had resided and made an aviary within his heart like the first sign of spring does for him. Damned wretched winter. How he had abhorred the coldest winter nights, with recurrent nightmares of Mischa and the barren desolateness of what was supposed to be his safe haven, a home. And he doesn’t give a _flying bird_ a **fuck** or anything, really, because he’s jealous of what it has. _Would he be jealous of her?_ Perhaps, _of her unparalleled ability?_ He would rather **digress** on that matter. Yet, now she becomes a wounded bird, despite him failing to see any external wounds that would cause her excruciating pain that would undulate against his own being. The night is far too spent and the day bleeds into their residence and he finds himself awake in this godawful time. Waves of his repressed emotions _reverberate_ through her, as if she had been in **his charge**. For he remembers the day when he had spotted a wounded bird, fallen to the ground with the absence of his or her mother. Nigel knows she doesn’t necessarily need his protection, but he isn’t exactly subtle in letting her know of his presence. A thumb caresses over her jawline as the warmth from his palm seeps into her, to paint her in ruddy coral. Hopefully she’d sink into that very sleep that had came with such a difficulty now. 

**iv.** He supposes, the concept of beauty is best observed from far away, like looking at a  _masterpiece_. No matter how he wishes to distance close, he’s forced to stand on the opposite ends, as if he beheld the worst fear of watching it **crumble** and **wither** away beneath his uncontrollable heat. He wouldn’t just observe when he could participate willingly and he’s such a willing participant. Even if that very same ember would scald crimson trails upon his frame as he renders immobile with the spilling heat resonating from her through her sickness. He perceives the thickened air, the **dryness** of the ambience as he closes in the distance. And the rush of chicken noodle soup’s scent overwhelms as he places the tray on the nightstand. She’s deep in slumber and he’s hesitant for once to do anything. Such unfamiliarity of action perplexes him still, yet he’s **untethered** to do what he had destined to do - for once he cares, _he really cares_. 

**v.** Blood becomes such a good substitute for lipstick, as his chapped lips tinge with  _familiarity_ of crimson, that metallic tang becoming so **puissant** against his windpipe to reach all the way down to his stomach, which growls with intent. Wanting to turn to ash or  **disintegrate** as he wants to be freed, more than anything, Nigel holds his tenacious grip upon both his sanity and consciousness before taking a fluttering intake of breath. He looks more emaciated, the sun-kissed form reduced into pallidness as the elven look of his prime days had made a gradual return. The blinding luminescence of the sunray turns into jabbing pins and needles as he had befriended the slanting shadows of the dusk and night. His appetite returns, yet his still atrophied muscles refuse to be commanded as the world reduces into an overexposed, blurred mess of muddied colors. And the wind is a goddamned liar and sweeps his leonine mane, grown too long against his shoulders. Gemma’s hold becomes his sole anchor, along with her tickling exhales against the back of his neck as they head to his favorite café, just a mere block away which feels like a realm of eternity.    


	119. Chapter 119

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Five times + longing (for Gabi or whoever Nigel longs for)

**i.** The walls had been solid, yet such _portent_ and _puissant_ memories comes in with a  **sledgehammer** ; cracking him open slowly and through his trembling hands and bloody knuckles, he _desperately_ and _futilely_ tries to seal the damage already done within his recurrent nightmares. Such lingering images turn into a file, shaving his **fortifications** down to open him up, to create a **chasm** big enough for anything to pass through. So piece by piece, he turns to _wafting dust_ around his feet and along the ravaging hurricane that tears through his life, ripping up trees by their **monolith** , _deeply rooted existence_ , shattering time-tested walls and his childhood beds, he would often watch the **calamity of destruction** behind the filtered lens, of what’s left dripping with mud as he treads carefully through the wreckage afterwards. Despite the devastation and the decrepit _infastructure_ of the castle itself on the manor, he watches a bud push through the rich soil. _And he knows his **deepest reverie** would heal and reconstruct in itself with time_. 

**ii.** He wonders if he’s _doomed_. Obviously, the person controlling his **karmic fate** had been himself and he could become the devil in those cruel moments and bask beneath  _illuminations_ if the moment presented itself, yet he had too much heart in a world that doesn’t value nor desire it. **Yes** , he holds enough _scar tissues_ , **etched**   **scratches** through the accumulated time and stories of a _delinquent_ and a _vagabond_ , yet Gabi had been not on the path that was chosen without his input. How that **consequential** event would turn his entire being around - _for she would be his sun._ And his entire being breathed the fundamental wildfire within him. For his heart is ablaze and he’s imbued with such eloquence. _And he’s the moon,_ a **dreamcatcher** upon the tumultuous and eerie air of the midnight blue. He’s burned by love, _love like the race_ that entitles an unknown forbidden trek of time. Through  **inevitability** , his heart continues to be broken - _fractured_ , _unwhole_ and _left in pieces_. 

**iii.** He’s an embodiment of a rough and coarse canvas, stretched over taut with the underpainting. He’s always the one layer beneath the final result, the final image on the surface, because what’s under such a masterpiece tells more tumultuousness, more stories and struggles than the finished picture above. Raw and visceral, the brush strokes remain the quintessential embodiment of his fundamental nature. More fluid with strength - for he possesses great potential and he’s always flexible. He might bend and stretch, become amorphous and malleable, but he’d never break and shatter. Even when he does, his form could turn like unkilned clay, still shapeable beneath the virtuoso painter. Yet, his memories are set in stone; fixated in peace, deeply rooted as the life beyond the trunk lays barren and withered. He must treat himself with care, yet such task proves difficult when he’s hugging onto the hardened tombstone, chipped away and corroded away with passing time. He laments. 

**iv.** Despite his _irascible_ nature, he doesn’t like **confrontations** and constant **quarreling**. Of course, he was used to getting perpetually _challenged_ and meeting with such admirable  _hindrance_ in his professional setting, yet in domesticity, he would very much like to be absent from all those. He could **tolerate** so much until they begin to **inundate** his mindspace and he simply can’t focus on anything else. For stretched syllables and words gnaw at the inside of his brain as he keeps back and forth, trying to assign every word said to its _volition_ and with  _virulency_. Reading such bleeding emotion through them was easy, yet when he’s coming down with such a **sickness of mind** , such quick-witted nature of him falters. As if nerve endings had been severed. And it annoys him tremendously for the fact that they are sculpted with the same features, yet such dissimilar characteristics. His expression smudges with a hint of pathos and an aggrevated strain. 

**v.** The air grows **thick** and **miasmic** , as _incessant_ wafting smoke barrages through the expanse of the club’s corridor. His own voice is lost within the screams of the night and he’s only barely perceptive of the headlights coming in the distance as his outer garment serves as a filter, to expel rising flecks of paint and dust and ashes. He listens to his own growing heartbeat, urgently pressing against the back of his throat as his limbs sway side to side. And with each passing second, they seem to grow seemingly **distant** , out of his _jurisdiction_ as he grows punch-drunk on glitter and chrome and broken and shattered neon lights. Shadows continue to _flicker_ as his palm presses hard against the slanting walls. The ground shakes and the streets are trying their best to keep everyone at bay and he soon joins them. Darko is nowhere to be found and a genuine concern crosses his face. Ever rising tendrils of reds and yellows devour his entire life, still, his future is alight bright. 


	120. Chapter 120

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nigel's answer to the question; "You use people to make yourself feel better."  
> Or... does he?

He’s cunning, filled with _desire_ and _paralyzing disease_ that would sneak into one and never leave. It would remind him of his own  **limits** , yet he knew there would be so much more to see and learn; a **yearning** of the _ocean_ to see the distant shore close around his _vehement_ clutch and watch things in life unfold as they did. All things **explicit** within him, of which made him beautifully visceral in behemoth, but he was also broken and could not be fixed by simple terms. He listens more, not simply because he’s wary and careful while unearthing the world, but he’d already learned to see the **darkness** even within the effervescent light. For fear, in the form of his guarded _barbed wire_ resembling the **impervious shell** of raw bluntness and entropythat had been his loyal companion, forges him for life. For it keeps him safe from his fragility.  

 

Now, he finds the _equilibrium_ of cracked composure through the comparison. However morally questionable, Hannibal had been always a **destructor** , whereas he had rashly and determinedly **self-annihilative.** For him, it wasn’t done to seek Gabi’s approval nor to use her like a marionette - she had been his savior, after all, however chaotic it had became in his jealousy and possessiveness. She had remained the bright sun against his pitch-black absence of light, but to maintain the sanity within his core that he was worthy of her love, so he would be the one to be _burnt out._  “At least I’m not fucking salivating myself with what couldn’t be hoarded and fueled on my fucking ego to thwart the constant onslaught of my vulnerabilities.” 

 

For he’s an **infernal beast** and a fucking **lawless cunt** who had came to terms with  _uncensored_ illumination through the heart and brain. Its  _inhabitants_ simply serve life by securing a good passage for the soon-to-be dead, who merely become the sad songs quietly screamed into the night as his lambent gaze reminds him that he’s still a human on the verge of breaking after all - still, it would take him a lot more than such selfish accusation to break him and he’d still find that fire has a way of leaving its mark behind even after it fades away for good. Uncannily and remarkably enough, he hadn’t pinpointed the grieving **denouement** to leave him to live, _continuously_ , trying to find the path out of the labyrinthine creases of his brain and the bustle of his heart. “Did I fucking make myself better by encompassing an echo of the salvationary crimson - the instantaneous streak of fucking whirlwind whip which had severed my life for good?” At least for some months he doesn’t remember. His memories collapse into obsidian and a bit of bitter resentment crosses his features. 


	121. Chapter 121

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Send ‘Five Times Fucked” for a drabble about 5 times our muses fucked (not made love…fucked)  
> Nigel x genderbent! Hannibal.

**i.** She scrubs his skin _completely_ **raw** with a different brand of fire - meeting his more  _visceral_ , _carnal_ **pendulum** of his hips as her own sways along in incessant slapping. He remembers her exquisite perfume, still clinging upon his skin after he watched her car pull in from the solemn silence of his bedroom, with a lit cigarette and a tumbler full of whiskey in hand. Knowing he had been engulfed by the very same scent oozing from her, they still remain silent and rather unmoved above their heads and underneath their feets. And their shapes become **skyscrapers** or **oceans** , living almost  _immortal_ lives as wind continues to sweep over their form in violent gale. Yet such _admiration_ is there, so does a deep _reverence_. They may forget the world they exist in - for words don’t express thoughts very well and he would like this to remain that way, wiping every **excessive** thoughts clinging between their cranium and curves of their grey matter. 

 

**ii.**  As his neck sharply arches backward, completely benumbed as the aftershock continues in the form of rippling **tremor** as it causes his body to rock. His trembling skin gleams with a film of _perspiration_ as the last spurt draws a dramatic arch over his abdomen. He hadn’t even considered the  **possibility** of her plucking him out to be _overstrung_ , eliciting such staccato of flaring notes all the length of his spine, to be discharged up above the crown of his head as the world had **corkscrewed** and **toppled** over. Heels sink down to the chilled floor, yet the atmosphere sweeps with blaze of their concentrated scents, mostly his own. Slick beads adhering and weaving through the mat of his chest hair as his heart _flips_ and _somersaults_ within the chest cavity, he lets more **strained** , yet dripping with molasses-like enthrallment known through more strings of profanities. For his fire smokes further with her **encouragement** \- and he’s an exquisite mess of _gorgeous chaos_. She’d see right through his eyes. 

 

**iii.**  His heart wickedly sings as his hand collides upon her chest, as his own naked torso plasters over the dramatic curve of Hannibal’s side. “I’ve fucking held my _tongue_ , coiled myself enough to be **patient**. My benevolence is fucking ticking and it’d been _ran out_.” Their farewell hadn’t been lovers waving sympathetic hands; with their scars and essence, thickening and coagulating until now. And his stomach drops and his smile wipes off as he blooms too-sharp and not quite right across his chiseled features. Lips pressed close to her folds and the weight of his words heavily hangs in the air in **stupefaction** , and such clash becomes his maddening _cacophony_ of zealous thrum of frantic beats and rippling **serenade** upon his veins. Curving his fingers around the back of her hip bones, he rams his twin against the opposite wall and lets that fire ignite.

 

**iv.** Hoping to penetrate through her core as his fingers crawl beneath where the heart bleeds, the raw edges of the fresh stitch closes around her palm, along with the intensifying scents of blood. He barely screams, yet his body’s convulsion elicits such weakness, presented in candor in most genuinity. He’s week at his knees, yet he maintains his impeccable posture against the armchair, which she had pushed him in and he sprawls. Whirling blood within his veins become the tumbled words, fuzzing his senses as he lapses into the language of the physicality. The wildness in his eyes become even indecipherable to him, as prospect of hunger clouds his vision. And her nimble, bony fingers are quick to draw out and devour weakness on sight, to play with him until his last gasping breath. He cannot sing well enough to offer his voice, yet he’s never been such exquisite and active storyteller in the room. 

 

**v.**  Constantly stimulating and flaring over his skin as his throbbing erection and every protruding inch of his vein seem to have their own heartbeat and she’s strung taut beneath him. There would be no tantalization nor foreplay - for he only seeks the fleeting wildness through the tunnel vision; offered in the form of her well-endowed body. He might be the dominant alpha now, yet he knows she controls him now like a tamed beast. His breath is already stuck in his throat, sinking with parchedness which will imminently fill with her wetness. The velvety skin tinges with mauve, the creased folds pulled tight as the sticky substance coats between his foreskin and the engorged head. Driven and focused, his lips curl into a devious smirk as he looks upon his twin in both muted **fascination** , as the thick head of his length begins to stimulate further against all the depressions of Hannibal’s flesh. His fingers gripping the other’s curvature with bruising force as the scent intensifies, hitting him like a freight train.


	122. Chapter 122

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "What do they make you feel like? The drugs? Do they make you happy?"

In the _broken_ tunnels of his mind, he strolls aimlessly for hours. The **tenebrous** atmosphere continues to _flicker_ and _overexpose_ in steady filter, the darkness  **agglomerating** with diminishing light source. The monsters have large, distorted power to squeeze and constrict his windpipe as his hopelessly cryptic mind continues to teeter. And poetries of his mind is deliberately smudged with disgusted spits and foams and molding façades that were once sculpted, concrete against his conscious become fraying at the edges. In the _suffocating_ house of **sorrow** , nobody, but himself can hear his own silent cries, ricocheting through his cranium like bouncing neon lights at the club. 

 

The ground which he stands gives in, the **quagmire** of depressing remnants of soaked childhood, along with his close-kiss with _eternal oblivion_ haunts him in whispered truths. His frightened thought doesn’t come from all those lost concept of _time_ and _existence_ , but of  **cremated love** \- they are crushed into pieces and long had it reduced to ashes, scattered upon without his proper farewell. Sometimes he wants nothing more than to fly, the need to having to go back and spend some more time in the past before he’s properly ready to come back to the present, to make up all the lost months and to transcend space and time, reason and rhyme. 

 

“First, the heat’s everywhere; twisted, dense, folding upon languid fold and another. The gnawing sensation lurks around every corner and peers out in my reflection.” A legend begins with a truth, but soon, his own imagination takes over and his conflicting _recollections_ tell different accounts to add new **segments** and **chapters** and **addendum** to keep it alive. Things had been left at vague, they were _twisting_ and _turning_ , like the churning water breaking waves as they bruised and battered his side. A bitter chill creeps into his spine as none of his usual triumphant smirk, cruel, entertained, gloating, wipes off from his overworked psyche. “Then all the drifting shadows of my dreams, filled with skies - turbulent, restless and monochromatic would flare up in opaque vividness - then nostalgia, all the yearning would creep over me, suffocate me whole in slow, quiet cadence. If you make through the lengthening stretch of agony and affliction, then solace and stillness would comfort me as I drown beneath the ocean tides.” How the reprimanding warning of the chemicals would elicit such stimulation, yet it would hollow him out in whole. As his empty nonchalance echoes through the confines of his office, thick with stale smoke and empty bottles of whiskey. 

 

“If you could call _restless nights_ and _merciless mornings_ as happiness,” his tone submerges with sarcasm. He had been utterly desperate, a prisoner of his _determined_ , _headstrong_ mind. When he had been etched with wafting breeze of **crimson** and both **healing** and **destructive** force standing right next to him like a spectre of grim reaper himself, he had reached the solstice of living and thriving through fanciful concoction of strident silence. 


	123. Chapter 123

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Original High || Nigel x Gabi Post-Canon

The saddest part of all is that I really thought you were my fucking beginning. 

**How fucking dumb** that was of me, how stupid, I should’ve known better;

better than to hope, better than to be fooled again by my own expectations. 

_Haven’t I learned my lesson?_ _Haven’t I done this from **time and time again** , walking down this road before? _

I wanted to be genuine, true to my words, to feel validated, to feel wanted, special, encompassed whole. Everything in this fucking world was clicking with the perfect, flawless piece. 

For my life had been a blur of strokes on canvas - **continuous** and **congruent**. 

Yet only for the moments we’ve spent together became its **masterpiece**. 

Since when did I look for your **shadow** in a fucking _sea of a million silhouettes_ , **mingled poetry** _written in blood of a broken heart?_ You had been the suture, weaving through me in page through page, to close my shattered heart back up again. 

You’re the fucking world I cannot change, a system I cannot influence and a life I cannot fathom; your presence feels like the result of a stuck-up I don’t remember committing. And I’m at my worst, for I have loved you the most in the darkest of days as the light had been fading away beneath the **tenebrousness** of me. And I am hurt to see me with a _broken_ and _crestfallen_ heart, shattered and torn apart.

Oh, how we **intertwined** , sparks suddenly _ignited_ , the **butterflies** would be _alive_ , for I’d find myself smiling in such delight with **chills** and **shivers** when our eyes would collide. In your hands, I confided in your sweet serendipity, for you, had been my cherished treasure chest that I would put my heart to the test as my _daydreams_ and _fantasies_ became tangible reality. 

Why couldn’t I be **gentle** , why couldn’t I be a **zephyr** , why am I always a fucking **hurricane** and **cyclone**? The sheer arrogance of _loneliness_ becomes a such _contemptuous haymaker_ \- as the memories of my past, such existence known as **exquisite love** and **limerence** taints all the comfort, confidence and consoled happiness. 

A noticeable absence where there once was a fucking **presence** ; _an ache,_ _a_ _hollowness_ that is new and therefore inexpressible. This emptiness is a unique experience and therefore useable. Though painful, I can force meaning and feeling into it and my soul is soaking in the essence of you - _you leave to strip me of the entire world_ , the **therapy** to my body, **the depth of your gravity** stretches me into pieces. 

So I set myself on fire in this dangerous **electrocution** that achieves the greatest high. Irresistibly shaken with the plaguing back alley thought that someday I will drop dead with a brain that’s wired all fucked up. 


	124. Chapter 124

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My attempt at Hannibal Lecter, book canon with series influence as Nigel's older twin.

“Aren’t we all trapped in a world full of **insanity** , I’ve learned that environment tends to have a _direct connection_ to personality. Our **delusions** alter into our own _twisted realities_ , comforting **afflictive** thoughts that never seem to disappear.” If only _his own_ could vanish as quickly as dreams did, cancelling out any **connotation** needed to describe dulled life. For he had grown used to the _numbness_ , which he perceived as a side effect of **madness** , just everything else now seemed to be. He’s well attuned to the tumultuousness of emotions, as he knows the smell of the memories bombarding him in the night when he feels gracefully lost beneath the touching limerence of Mischa’s star-shaped hands and gossamer caress of white foam. 

Now, those only taint with the putrescence of burnt ashes instead of ectoplasm of sweeping steam, coalescing into the warm air from the hearth as the gnawing **tendrils of flame** would entrap beneath his intense maroon gaze - while he drifts slowly into the _pensieve_ of his elaborate **mind palace** , he feels at absolute peace as he would pity anyone ruled by head or heart alone. Should he grow pitious for his twin then, who held his heart on his palm, with wicked debonair charm exuding like tendrils of bitter rust and leaked such malice and menace? It would flow haphazardly into Hannibal’s own being, rousing slight **irritation** , perhaps an **intrigue** , but nothing else. 

“Tell me, Nigel, if all and parallels were come to meet, all the prisons beholding such broken records to mend, should we become less insane?” How his eyes imperceptibly narrow in slits as he regards his twin - a flitting image of **extraordinary ordinariness**. _Unkempt, wounded, inebriated_ and _sinfully wicked._


	125. Chapter 125

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Post-Canon Nigel.

His mind traverses back into the **unfathomable** darkness and into the _uncharted nook_ and  _cranny_ of the bed. Face-first, as **vacuous** as his fading grasp upon the world. Into the fucking wilderness where it’s just all _savagery_ and desolate _stretch_ of stale blood and innards. **Death** had came over him, almost washing him clean to release him from the memories of those other, squalid deaths of other people, yet, the **dominance** exerted over them and the recurrent weave of curving graph, as more crumble beneath him in dusts and ashes, he _accumulated_ more scars. But _would that mean if he chopped off the tip of the pyramid, would the whole fucking structure of violence collapse?_ He himself had been plummeted deep into the **moral turpitude.** _So why would he hold an inconsistent belief with cognitive dissonance?_ He needed to reach the pinnacle as he rebels against the degradation of self-image.

“Like fucking death, it’s something of a **requirement** for this _indefinite procedure_ ,” his eyeballs reduce almost invisible behind spectacles lit by stark white light as countenance crinkles if he had just gazed the world for the first time. “I’ve been declared clinically dead for several months, so I know the exact fucking sentiment.” A small price to pay for immortality? The way he puts it, it’s the reverse-death and he isn’t free from the nostalgic woe, hazel reflecting the vision of a reality perhaps too cold and harsh against the **enigmatism** of his stretching memories that came like _colossal tides_ that would keep him on his knees. However, **its beauty** , the beauty of **death** still forever haunts his soul and it’s what he remembers of him, the **philosophy of a man** completely flipped, the _self-preservation_ turning into _self-sacrifice_ as the memory of its elegance remains in the recess of his mind. 


	126. Chapter 126

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nigel's Death (post-canon, second time T_T)

With pivoted hips and locked in molasses-like cloying scent of adrenaline coursing through his brain, his **plastered** body might as well lay _fixated_ , plummet down to the very earth which he had been born out of and rot until he _disintegrates_ into the very color of the deep ash below his bent legs. His skin will surely **dissipate** into the solid marble ground and the world will wear thin around him. No matter how much Aiden screams or tears his own throat at his ear, he is _deaf_ , _blind_ and almost **dead**. 

He could literally hear the jet of crimson sputter from the entry wound, smack dead between his brows. Though such an abstract heatwave becomes dreadfully distant, yet ever infernal and intrinsic upon the insane heat he embodies through his heart’s quiver, the _agglomerated_ **acceleration** sparks all of his synapse-endings to be fired up, only to spark and go lights-out in a millisecond. He knows exactly what he’s doing - he’s **decaying** right here and now as he’s attracting flies with his open stomach. For the walls of his _desiccated_ **sacred temple** had already crumbled and the jewels had been long taken for the granted and he’s _embracing_ the lull before **thunder** strikes once again to take him towards the _inevitability_ of his **limbo**. The headshot should’ve given him the much sought-after _instantaneous_ _death_ before he even collapses onto the cold ground of early fall, yet _woe_ is the **calamitous** **fate** , yet he doesn’t fear the state of disaster with his second encounter. 

As he had been **a slave to love** and drowned in three years of an _exquisite_ blissful relationship, with theirs barely kicking off in such jubilant elation, a faint **phantasm** of grin makes his lips _imperceptibly_ curl, the blood gleaming like a black opal, drawing a shape of heart as if it had been a **definitive definition** of his life. _Seeking_ and desperately _searching_ for his true love - yet such sufficient suffice of his events and objectives becomes the **catalyst** for correlated pattern of fixated artistry, _wicked_ and further _degrading_ , for the system of his cells sing in **detested** **requiem**. As wounds litter him like distant roads, Aiden would see through these steady stream and map out his essence in his eulogy, perhaps in his _dedicated piece_ of his **revolution**. 

For his life is a message scribbled in the **abysmal darkness,** brought upon by numerous saviors to translated whole. From his immaculate childhood to demented youth, where the survival after death had been known to him after he stirred a great **conspiracy** , only to mock the grim reaper and slap him in the face with his characteristic sinister, debonair charm. For he would rule both the **limbo** and the **gutter** with his iron-fist and _colossal presence,_ despite being riddled with such **flaws** that would disgracefully lower the status of a _lawless criminal._  


	127. Chapter 127

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Headcanon + Ethereal

The charred scent of the crisp, freshly burned glass stabs his nose as his bronzed skin weighs further down into the fertile earth. His eyes still continues to sparkle as they reflect off the star-studded sky with trust after all the deceit and lies, the jut of his _voluptuous_ , **cruel** lips set in a straightened line as he indulges in the calm sound of relenting waves amidst a storm. With every passing hour of city lights and this light shower, the humid Bucharest night continues to thrum and roar beneath him and in the long distance, where he remains the kingpin of such sector. Somehow, the universe had convinced for a chance to write **ridges** and **fissures** of deep crimson through his palpable physicality, yet his resilience and will to live had surpassed that of the _unparalleled_ **animosity** that had almost severed his existence, of his **thrumming fanaticism**.

He’d come to write his own rhymes and verses in store as his form lays over the upturned garden, still empty of its lush, vibrant fragrance from copious amounts of blossoming flowers. Without the _technicolors_ that would penetrate through the inky **imperviousness** of his dark mind, his past’s _disease_ , all the **marrows** and **sinews** , _rotten putrid_ beneath his combing fingertips, become _disintegrated_ **dust** and _suffocating_ **ashes** as his world falls down with its monochrome bleakness. He doesn’t have to fling through the dog-eared, yellowed notebooks of his archive, in order to recall a swell of blood, rapidly formulating like the bleeding sunset upon the recesses of his flesh. Instead of offering such effervescing sight, a wonder to behold in petrification, it acts more like jagged nails in an iron maiden, pulling his life fluid in a tidal surge as the word ‘home’ etches into its concave walls. 

The temple of his bones scream with such fleeting peace as whirling caress of ectoplasm from his cigarette could only do so much in bridging that very gap of his existence. Greatly highlighting the hues surrounding him, increasing his unfinished and unwritten chapter in his life of its **significance**. The images of _barren landscape_ , its **gelid** air that remains relentlessly ruthless as icicles close around the chasm of his windpipe - dents with more an **immense** **impact** ; never to be replaced, never to be fixed and never to be forgotten. 

And he often wonders what his **essence** will reduce down to, without this particular piece of him that he has ruined, _loosened_ his own two wings as he becomes a _fallen poet_ , who would only write about dreadful things - such as **sex** and **love** and such fucking bitter **pain** as he gets tossed about and fall through the clouds while _screaming_ his rhymes aloud with the hopes that he might be get a chance to **redeem** himself. 


	128. Chapter 128

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "what if you were alive?"

**He’s tired** , _sinking into his bones tired_ and it’s days like these that he wishes there was a chest to lean his forehead against, it seems that he and she have fallen together until he doesn’t know how to draw the lines of his skin, so it seems he’s always seeping out into rooms and hallways when she isn’t here to seal him up. He’s **boiling over** , a hundred thousand thoughts in this quicksand mind of his and he wonders if it would be too inevitably and irreversibly late to get out. Turning his skin inside out until she can see the shine of his lungs and the velvet red of his heart, all the fucking _scrapes_ and _bruises_ , writing his **autopsy report**  over and over, telling her that all the people that ever that partaken to kill him had made his own world to ripple and churn and glare. With absolute clarity and animosity, a torrent of crimson would continue to obscure his entirety, if he had been trapped in the most severe storm he could ever imagine; memories are too close, the thunderous scream that wasn’t going to be ejected becoming an echo of a racing heart. 

 

Now, the sunlight glares through brimming saline salt in his eyes as an **essence of hurt** lingers in the air. In a _scenario_ such as this, when he’s in such an **irrevocable anguish,**  how could words even comfort the ones who mean the most, for this _ache_ and _torrent_ that passes through his _diminished_ and **inconsequential being** which he exists? What is this ache and torrent that passes through his skin and body, the potent pain in which he exists? Things aren’t supposed to be real in this state, yet it remains to be taking a vicious bite out of his everything; taking ligament and skin, blood pouring from veins that haven’t had the chance to make it back to the heart. It’s not of retaliatory vengeance his entirety is surrounded with, but of longing and limerence for his form. Needlessly graceful, Grecian, well-sculpted like a Greek statue. 

 

No matter what sides he ended up, as most people he knew of already would’ve had succumbed to the threading **torpor** of such **violence** crumbling upon them, he well perceives that he had been the offsprings of **undeserved violence.** He still didn’t have much idea of what she had been capable of doing prior to this, yet such _tangible record_ had been enough for him to go on and solidify his wonderings. Even the silence itself renders with an  **incessant heatwave,** drowning and suffocating him with all its might. And he still breathes the fume of the city he had abandoned; with a good measure, yet still attached as if he had been bound to it for eternity. “If I ever fucking lived - I would treasure each and every lengthening second with **sincere severity**. For I couldn’t fucking fathom to place a limit upon what I would do if I can ever breach through this impervious depth between parallel realms of life and impasse state of limbo.” 


	129. Chapter 129

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Post-Canon Nigel feelsy shit.

His body is such a treacherous thing; as his own hard and roughened fingertips clasp around the **crumbling temple** ; reducing to be more like an _illusion_ , such intransient thing of **entropy**. With each threaded suture holding him in whole, the perforated holes widen and pull together with such _elasticity_ and each sensation agglomerates into being like a **wave breaking** on the rocks and he feels packed into the wall opposite him, where he can’t tell he’s hallucinating or having a frantic fit of hysteria. While the blood still seem to hemorrhage out of his body, the festering rot was running rampant upon the strained strands of his muscles. Such blanket of warmth that had been his **fundamental fuel** now suffocates him in _anarchical_ **uncertainty** as skin pores widened like craters, the itch he couldn’t scratch digging beneath down to his muscles, aggregating there to latch their tenacious grip upon the expanding stretch. He inhaled hot, exhales scalding smoke and trails of ash, akin to the abysmal abyss of the fathomless barrel of his revolver. 

 

Through the haziness, akin to the distant horizon merging upon the vast expanse of unfathomable sky beneath the dense fog, the pendent **miasma** seeping within the ambiance along with the deafening palpitation serving as a **warning signal** roots his slender legs in place. Through the thickening odor of his sticky sweat and sultry trail of blood turning into a steady current, he drowns out the _commotion_ of his memory, ongoing like a repeated music on loop; a **stampede** upon the dance floor, full of rising tide as the hoofbeats seem to rattle his weakened vessel. He could feel the corner of his eyes flutter as he regards the figure within a tangible distance with oozing limerence.

He feels as if he’s being skinned alive as his epidermal swelters and endless ulcers form to drown him in a white, viscous, watery discharge. Upon the vanishing form turning into ghost of impressions, he watches crimson stream flow and leave marks of fading petals upon the earth, equally barren and sun-baked. As he watch a manifestation of vehement shadow consume him whole as he floats upon the air like inactive memory, too violent and brutal to be agitated and extracted out of him and he watches the atom, at the very core of his experience that shaped him disintegrate into the dust as he suffocates. 

 

The burned soot and ash chars his outline as the mere ectoplasm of himself gets dragged into the otherworld. And something stirs, as if the intended projectile had been penetrating through his skull, brain matter, exiting with the purpose as the depth of his caved-in gaze weeps with such **vehemence**. For **morbidity** electrifies through his veins, even when the world would halt, through the severed edge of death drenching his diaphanous hazel to snuff that ever-burning flame. This heart still beats and the voice still speaks, as his mind still seeps despite knowing of this life’s **greatest failure** and **accomplishment**. He had lost her of all people who had been his savior, and he would load the same bullet and direct it towards her, immensely curious if she’d survive both the blessing and the curse.

 

“And how that very moment **saturates** through my veins, to whisper all the fucking strains of thing I have not understood, or better, _failed_ to understand as I had been led by false nostalgia that would grow trench deep and violent.” He indeed hoped that Gabi would become his _eternal_ _savior_ , even when he looked utterly broken inside, as his face screamed for the answers he’ve been trying to hide. Yet, such **unsurpassed inevitability** of his demise had left her from his grasp and he would persistently survive. “I was willing to carry all the fucking burden to be unfettered, liberated from the stolen dreams of our lives. Yet, I remained just a fucking goddamned chapter in her life. Untold, unreal, fabricated upon deceptions and lies. I loved her,” a swallow that would tear his windpipe as salt threatens to pour. “ **With all my damned life**.” 


	130. Chapter 130

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nigel's loyalty has been fucked up. (HEADCANON)

This is how his life had been _shaped_ , **reshaped** , **liquified** beneath the wicked turn of whirlwind, without him ever expecting its course. He had survived the worst of it, yet there is always another ledge that he would somehow overlook. And this is how the karmic  **fate** pulls him back, with love louder than a **blazing gunshot;** this is how he perishes and falls upon his knees, with nothing, but her in his mind as he wears sorrow plastered onto his skin like a film of dripping honey. _Who could ever touch this adamantine body of his without ever wounding their hands?_

Suffocating beneath the midnight blue, he lost count for his live; there’s not an ounce of panic within those encompassing hazel, but of **hatred** , _disbelief_ , as silent screams fail to eject out of shard-scraped windpipe as he halts the entirety of his being of existing. **The lion shreds at his veins** as he holds fire on his tongue, swallowing it back down in attempt to reserve his fading strength. He had pleaded for a thousand lifetimes with him, yet the world gives him one without as he watches the silhouette of the figure, so well known to him disappear with the looming, hyper-conceivable **blackness**. 

How old man’s grief embeds upon his still-youthful bones as he would defy to be shattered, shed even a single droplet of tear. Torn stuck between the **past** and **present** , belonging neither here nor there. His soul remains _divided_ , being and sanity contained in pieces of people, places and memories past the whole sum of his parts. A flawed, imperfect whole as **verticality** of his life fluid paints him in deeper crimson as his whole crumbles; fragments of himself pushing farther apart drifting out to the sea. The tide would carry away all that he has come to know. 

As blaring siren of the ambulance with the dissipating haloes of **illumination** swaying against half-focused hazel, he almost wishes that everything would change in a big-bang scenario. Shooting infinitely outwards in an eruption of speed and light, leaving no traces of the speck that once contained his own **universe** , because he’s slowly losing parts of himself and this ache surpasses any grasping pain he’s inflicted with. Suddenly, he’s caught in the _riptide_ and it’s all he could do to muster enough strength to keep from **going under**. 

The ground remains too far from his feet and now absent of the solidity beneath his feet afloats him in a buoyancy of strangers’ arms as he utters one name that governs his mind before losing consciousness. “Darko.” 


	131. Chapter 131

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Headcanon; LOVE. (Nigel x Gabi)

The symphonies knocking outside his grimy window is **not a gift from the beyond** , for the waves don’t choose to wash upon the shore endlessly like it would the potent emotions _elicited_  by the **unconcealed,** _unwrapped_ tunes ready for discovery. It is in this great  _endeavor_ the he finds joy within the _wretched grasp of pain,_ withholding every slatted rib and inch of his afflicted organ. He’d led to believe this is part of his humanity, to _bereave_ and  _lament_ over the loss of his sanity as he tethers beyond death as pressing blaze of heat threatens to have his heated surface of his skin to crackle and fissure. Yet, the subtle facial expression of **exquisite bliss** last a second; full of _love_ and _affection_. How he bathes in such instrument of healing. 

He continues to bleed through the _applause_ , the **rendez-vous** of their auras clashing in mid-air. He has been inadvertently saying her name more often, how his chapped lips would tinge with colors upon her name, just like the dumped sunset **beyond** the horizon, seeping into his cramped flat as _exotic features_ bathe in colors he hadn’t been blessed with on top of his pallid whiteness. It’s the sound of her soul coming through, and he will get the most varied, yet **passionate response** every single time. Even when he’s full of deep sighs and wet eyes, heavy breathing and lack of sleep, he loves the days, especially when the _serenade_ stretches and breaks the lush darkness. Each note brighter than the lighted illumination scattering the blasé street of Bucharest. It keeps him up; _she keeps him up_ , and he’s still **high** when she’s around. 

And despite the stemmed blood and tenacious clutch of pain suffocating beneath the lull of his eased breathing that would match the gentle pluck of the cello strings, all he could recall through the lingering flame still governing the pierce eyes, half-shut and slowly draping, now, is the absence of stimulation. With the music gone, his eyes are there to only exist, to be snapped open intermittently by the _soaring pain_. Its virulent venom tinging across the light green specks as the time seem to stretch - serving almost like a **trompe l’oeil** , the visual trickery upon the _shifting_ _paradigm_. 

His fingers, the recoil still lingering upon the inevitable quiver, remains slippery with sweat and blood. With a faint hint of disapproval, but feeling **subversive** by the _docility_ of his slouched form, he whips his face and gets better perception of the downstair as his entire being shrieks in suffocating inhalation that would send incessant pinpricks down his whole left side. His profile scrunching as a hiss goes off like a firework. At least the grip **neutralizes** the sinking swamp from consuming him whole as his incoherent gaze captures nothing. 

This partial _rebirth_ , of its abortion through the absolute **emptiness** aches with the nill weight of her. 

 

 


	132. Chapter 132

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A childhood drabble (reminiscion)

The unfurled landscape of the night floats with the stars over the  **edge of his consciousness** ; dipping and soaring, ascending and descending, tossing and turning, rustling and whispering and blowing at the mercy of the _prevailing wind_.  ****Strained breaths squeeze out from his constricted lungs as his half-open hazel penetrates through dishevelled locks, plastered haphazardly against his prominent cheeks. His own blood, sweat along with the stifling heat intermingle with his heavy **exhaustion** as a scalding trail of fresh crimson trails the curve of his side as nimble fingers finish the threading through the pre-existing _perforations_ of the suture line. Gradually, the lightheaded feel of colossal waves wavering through the cranium becomes a gentle rippling motion, as his own voice that stems through the **unlucid palpitation** becomes much more clarified than being a voice from another realm, almost _untranslatable_. 

His waterfall thoughts continues to daze in haze, as he recalls the impervious sash of the _deep_ , **trenchant** woods below. How his jolting demeanor, reflecting his brave, fearless self as of now had gotten him in so much trouble. With the colors of fire-mottled gashes digging deep into his calves as he valiantly fought with the oppressive caretakers at the orphanage, he would often seek comfort beneath the array of sparkling stars and sickle moon, making home out of his inner wars which haunted his sleep - for _violence_ and _affliction_ had made his bed their **battlefield** , for the dominance of his reverie. How each night had offered him and Hannibal to scale these _barricades_ , to fleetingly **liberate** themselves to resolve the pain and permit peace. For him, to calm the storm of his **uncontrollable rage** , embedded within such fervency of his hazel. 

A resounding sacrifice, for he had burned and burned until there had been nothing left, not even ash. The sweet sting of blisters and skin scarred from too much heat couldn’t be alleviated by his fire. And he’s on the verge of _resolution_ , his **breakdown**. How this long winding road will always bring him back to Hannibal. How he had been an **endless wanderer** on that very rooftop, for he had been **less burdened** with the weight of uncertain future and the _weariness_ lying beneath the resolute stubbornness of a capricious child; quick to anger, defying conventions and rules, Lecters were the thing of the talk; he was sure of that even after he fled from such pandamonium.

The night sky is soft, is quiet, it is only them who will move without fail, without pause for breath. How the sudden cracking of a whipping wind caresses his face with a burning touch and the sound of the crashing and **swallowing** **undulations** of it fills the air with such an immense white noise, _flattening_ _out_ like smog. As it sails past the horizon, the once-scabbed knuckles bleed once again, as charged hazel overbrims with emotion-ridden tear. 


	133. Chapter 133

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hannibal happens to drop by and see Nigel, but then there's Clarice.

The color of his blood reflects the light colors of the sky, yet his soul remains a **starless vacuum,** sucked right into the _hollow_ of Clarice’s warmth as he gladly dawns her embrace like a straight-jacket. Like a bloodthirsty leopard savoring its exquisite taste of surging blood into its mouth, he _relinquishes_ into the exquisite raptures of delight, the **rousing musk** ever-growing to caress his body like sparks of electric currents. With this rate, he could release without ever being inside her. Beneath the ravine of the summer, with all shaded sunlight as the sounds of a thousand birds echo through his deepest reverie, his honed gaze mellows like melted caramel upon her features, **malleable** , wickedly and deceivingly **innocuous**. Already waterlogged with layer of thin sweat, the sensitive tip giving a little twitch as he shifts his leg to be crossed the other way, fingers unfasten a couple of buttons. Sweltering day, caressed by heatwave and basking under the sun above. His _rapacious_ heart about to accelerate faster than the hum and roar of his heart, like his superbike’s engine. 

Lost in trying to find his way back to reality, ‘ _the death of a sinner always reflects his life_ ’ acts as a cue. How fucking blissful way to die it would be. Too encompassed by his own corporeality and the **gratifying buzz** coursing through his vein like the most powerful drug. ****If this was hell he would be dragged down, sinking eternally into an unfathomable pit of incinerating fire, he feels like that soldier who had ran a marathon distance to bring forth the good news of the victorious battle. If he dropped dead now, he would meet his untimely and foreseen demise with a curl of his lips. Running only on adrenaline and the looming prospect of what is about to come, the pyromania inside him fuels more of the blazing embers sweeping through his coppery skin, still sensitive, pink and jagged edge of **distorted epidermal** tingle all over, the undulation rising like a tide, turning into a sweeping tsunami. The arousal like the sun beating down, the sand, the primary colored technicolor of his hues as his being reduces akin to having woken up after years of sleeping. Disoriented, groggy, his eyes adjusting as the world seems to sway and warp briefly. 

Growing impatient than ever, he wants to rip the clothes off. Instead, he fumbles with the gun’s barrel, adhered to the dimple of his back with a puddle of sweat. Throwing his head back and his limbs, his own body becomes the hot column of air, about to be released through the projectile, turning _vicious_ and _animalistic_. His most deepest raw desire formulated through the wispy cloud of his crystallized puffs of breaths. Riveting and thrilling. As soon as they are out to savor the chilled wind sweeping through their form, the **inflaming kiss** sends his already swollen lips to clash, grope with _wholesome_ eagerness and earnestness. Bewildered and winded, he struggles to take a breath as he loses his mind - he recognizes this _loop_ , a memory buried lifetimes ago floats easily to the surface. He sneaks a glimpse at Clarice with the **ravenous look** on his eyes, ardent and fierce. How his voice quavers, along with the undulating lull of his breath. A hand smoothing over his side, the rise and fall of his chest pressing against the tight, unforgiving fabric when it comes to absorbing the sweat and how his whole body burned as if the wound burned and throbbed.   

Untainted hand holds the manifestation of their hardships; yet, Hannibal was anything but  **indifferent** , a trait that he had adopted as a part of his marvelous persona since childhood. In fact he was, if anything, _passionate_. Yet passion had little to do with **euphoria** , and everything to do with patience. It is not about feeling good, but _endurance_. He is incarnate of passion and patience, derivative of the same Latin root of _pati;_ meaning to **suffer** , are anything but exuberating. This was the ideology that the good doctor lived by and his brother, Nigel, currently _embodied_. Passion, was both the forked tongue devil and plumage-feathered angel, upon his shoulders and now, it holds his ribcage like a broken reliquary. Sacred bones crumbling, both his vulnerability and his pain grasping as his fingers turn vices, his comfort fleeing like a deer in a forest caught on fire. 

How he wishes to shove his hand into his brother’s torn abdomen, with all the _transgressions_ to manifest his displeasure until the **shimmer of dust** on Nigel and Clarice’s encompassed skin folds over beneath his vicious strength as bones snap like twig from willow trees. How his lids close beneath the furiousness, just to bring back his sanity as the air grows thick. There should be no inhibitions, no restraint - for such heeded, candor passion that remained ever so hidden should be **uprooted** , despite the broiling heartbreak. 


	134. Chapter 134

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Five times kissed, Nigel x Clarice

**i.** How Mischa fucking erases the concept of him, getting rid of every _letter_ , every exposed  _picture_ , every _message_ carried across by the **rapid fire** that had left a sharp twinge in his own gut. Even his _blood-stained_ hand, all the **echoes** of **screams** rent and torn the last gasps of his hope and love, as the wounds have been too deep to be borne. The scales fall and familiar visualization of Mischa’s strewn bones and ravaged flesh and empty marble cerulean blue gaze that had embodied such **immaculate innocence** had been tainted by the hands which paint the antithesis of his glory. He had fallen into the _wickedness_ , as he thrusted his blade deep into flesh, most willingly _sowing_ as he **severed** the man in an absolute ruin, a **carnage** fueled with consuming rage as ruin had been his name. How he cries as he lay _waste_ on the mattress, bearing all the evidences of his struggle through semi-consciousness. Love, hope and life would be never his to taste and savor, yet Clarice’s mold of her lips, a bare ghosting touch upon the barest flutter of his own as an imperceptible breath sinks his broad shoulders to move accordingly. Even if that had been a soft smudge upon his threading conscious, it serves as a spark, a buzz that would set his shaken, upside-down world straight. As he sucks in air through his teeth, a faint smile dissipates as he sinks back to lulling slumber, as the potency of imagery melts alongside her head, leaning against the valley of his neck. 

 

**ii.** Completely **enraptured** and **enveloped** by the warm radiance the sun amalgamating them whole without a single boundary and aggravated by Clarice’s heated flesh and still-warm caress over the bronzed flesh, his senses awaken with a _racing pulse_. All the latent energy sparking with each grinding motions and through the penetration, all force and without hesitation as the sensation becomes almost unbearable as the new intensity streams forth through Nigel’s straddling movement. How he had charted his feelings and calculated  **counterfeit happiness** the prior to knowing her, yet there wouldn’t be such a _defensive flame_ burning through him - in essentiality, his being wraps with such tender brand of **affection** and **adoration**. With ease of the constricting fiber of his muscles, he accepts the **battle-cry** of his body. Through the hardships, the _triumphant_ feeling would be greater, in **multitudes**. As if her skin had been turning him, Nigel pushes her shoulders through a gentle squeeze as a drop of sweat temporarily blinding him. The brush of the tip of their noses, coalescing breaths agglomerating heat with each exhaled breaths, as a mere brush of lips turn into two damp hearts, his own dark world beneath the dimming lamps flaring into a bursting wildfire. How he wishes to remain in this echo of love that they lay in as the beast within him reverberates like a motorcycle engine. 

 

**iii.** It rained yesterday for all day, it was the rain that would put him to sleep when he had been restless. It was the same rain that would remain cold on his skin, but warm against his spirit. The late-May rain had _conquered_ the every stretched territory, even the rooftop of Nigel’s ragged flat. Now, the **infastructure** of the roof had been on the _verge of collapsing_ , with leaking drops of water incessant against the numerous buckets, serving as temporary fix. **Silence** would have settled into the neighborhood, yet he could still hear the last night’s shuddering thunder as the white noise of the **incessant** drops break the tranquility that he could almost hold hands with. **Almost** being the key word. He’s a creature with whom Clarice could unquestionably share mutual enjoyment of the other one’s company; he does not expect Clarice will give him food. He adores how she tries and that alone works, whether it’s her genuine cooking that exudes like the southern hospitality he had acquainted with, or from rolls in a can that he loves with more cinnamon, that spiciness cutting through the saccharine sweet. And how his kiss turns more caramelly, languid like melted chocolate, more like a stretching taffy as they stand opposite the countertop of the island kitchen. Backing beneath the hush of the summery dusk. They both had waited long for the quiet, yet he supposes, with her in his peripheral, he accepts that it’s okay to have the thunderclouds longer than he had expected. 

 

**iv.** His hazel, submerged beneath the inky black that seeps darker and darker by the heartbeat retracts further into his deep-ridged eye sockets. A looming **darkness** as Clarice’s fingers clasp over the base of his neck, her pad of thumb close against his adam’s apple. A steady pummel of his heartbeat continues to be fueled by the close proximity, _intermingling, coalescing_ with their intense clash of aura. A beautifully terrifying and wretchedly enthralling thought. Having been placed in both ends and so numerous times, where penetrating gaze of the gunman had offered a strange chill, transforming into a completely and wholly new sensation as he lived through a multitudes of shadows. Clarice should know; she’s not exactly a layman when it comes to meticulousness of her marksmanship. How the tunnel vision would turn into a fervid intensity of a stallion’s, as if he had been gazing into the abysmal of the barrel in that very moment. Soon, the **projected velocity** would turn into splitting and quivering energy as it wrapped around and grazed his flesh. Melting through his viscera as he had sung with soft shudders. He still sings, through the garment, the expanding energy of regenerated skin providing a sensitive sheets of contracting tightness that would bate his breath closer. Trembled meetings in the empty air as his breaths squeeze and constrict upon with the halting time. Instantly dispersing, the splitting edges overlap again as a soundless, fluttering agitation instantly brings him back into the reality. And he’s backed against the wall with a force greater than what’s anticipated from her; as the ravaging stretch of motions turn all teeth and nips and bites, how his exhales turn into blasting force, not quite meeting her rumbling of tectonic plates, the kiss of their coeur to coeur. Still, a calm before the storm. 

 

**v.** He isn’t accustomed to **contact** since his fleeing from the orphanage. None other than Hannibal had courage and nerve to touch him affectionately, for all the other touches had been from the oppressive caretakers and bullies, whom instead of sharing love, had  _suppressed_ his hatching love to **latch** his heart in the confines of his ribcage. How he had been a **winged** **troublemaker** , with _bruised knuckles, cold eyes_ and _slouched shoulders_ of a predatory leopard. Sneaky, slender and surreptitious. Though he knows he will never be pure, Clarice had been the closest of the Angel he had visualized in his wicked horizon of his dreamscape; with her slender frame, wiry strength, kohl-lined smudge that defined her eyes to be evermore mystique. The barbed wire of his being mellowed and unfurled to be melted down into the growing colors of him. How all the previous scars become such trademarks of the _embodied_ _beauty_ he becomes and with her, his mind becomes a **constant motion,** wavering between unfinished thoughts and expired memories. Even when shaky and unstable, the latter would help his chaos to be tamed beneath her helping hands. No longer would he find listlessness and lack of inspiration through his life, as they had conquered through the crashing waves that would swallow him whole. There’s an eternal sadness about him, but never _dissatisfaction_ nor _incapability_ of before. Her scent lingers, along with the wafting scent of her shampoo from the golden cascade, half of it still draped over his shoulder. “Did you finish counting the money?” No more would be snap back and forth like an **elastic band** and drown beneath a thousand unuttered exhales as ghosts of moments still played on repeat. A new life would soon begin with their almost kiss, an almost moment. A new beginning.  


	135. Chapter 135

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nigel proposes to Gabi.

How he **falls** , allowing himself to _free fall_ from the sky without a parachute. His body rolling like the beating waves along the shore before the tempestuous storm as he becomes the epicenter, the ongoing **afterthoughts** of his movements bringing a resurgence to his exquisite arousal. Still reeling from the afterglow as the moist expanse of his back glows with the luscious sheen under the illuminating moonlight, his corporeality feels like he’s about to turn into a melted candle, or slowly melting bronze sculpture, scalding heat ever-glowing inside his core, like a ticking time bomb. Each heartbeat pressing against the back of his throat, the lub-dub of the heart vibrates to his brain like a bell tolling on the church tower. Almost **solemn** , all his senses directed to focus on the _oscillation_ as the frequency carries in waves, sweeping him and kissing over him. The thing is that he can carry his faith with him and then before he hits the ground to pulverize, he is risking his entire self to willingly go out of his way to end his own action without any logical thinking. How such **fervent madness** governs his cranium. 

Sinking and succumbing into the abysmal pit of the quagmire, the sticky and warm fluid tastes salty sweet against his tastebuds, licking over the web of his fingers as hazel pool grows both _ravenous_ and drips with mellifluous sweetness. Just like how he had imagined it would taste. She tastes _consummate,_   **exquisite** like the most sought-after caviar or țuică, his choice of Romanian spirit.. Tongue wagging as he trails the digits, not missing a minute trace of the dense viscosity. Letting his **unkempt** , drenched locks curtain over his intense eyes, he relishes the burgeoning _pinnacle_ of bliss, still rolling over his coppery skin as he savors the lingering taste of her on his fingers, too addictive, attracted and unavoidable as a hopeless fly drowning in a sweet molasses of the pitcher plant, sliding off the rolled leaves to be digested, **ingested** and **consumed**. 

He stills, finding every expanse of his tendons and sinews, every fucking nerve and synapse firing out of whack, the _electromagnetic_ currents in his brain surging to give him an electrocution-like **petrification**. How he becomes so _attuned_ to his senses, the **sound** of her voice and **touch** of her skin, which had fallen into disarray coming back to his senses as she removes gravity, causing an ache in his head. He’d already made his choice; the truth was that he hadn’t felt such **crux** of happiness since being with her. Even the sunrise he abhorred would be painted with colors so vibrant and exquisite that they seemed to be dancing across the horizon. There were so many moments that **transcended** time and space in which he finally let out all of his troubles, which had seemingly faded away into the background. Breaking through the _torporous_ _gravity_ , he retrieves an object, a black box encased with a thin, red ribbon in the nightstand drawer. 

“Open it, gorgeous.” **Happiness** is not an event; it is not a _moment either_. No taxing and heartbreaking and pitiful process will rattle his heart anymore as he grows **studious** of her blossoming expression. The revolver smolders like his skin, reflecting the darkness like his nature, with his pressed cursive which says ‘ _to my darling Gabi, love, Nigel_ ’ engraved into the smooth grip of the intricate surface. With a widening stretch of his lips as he leans over her naked back, he hands her a bullet box, the color rose gold. She should find the wedding band, an ornate line of gold dancing along the smoke of the titanium. How she had came like a **sliver of light** , an orange halo decorating the sky like a complete rainbow. How the circle engulfs his being as the _luminosity_ matches the irises of his hazel. The sun wanes down as a tickle of breath contours against her slender neck. “Will you marry me?” How **spark** and  **hunger** flares as his essence feels so alive. 


	136. Chapter 136

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nigel x Gabi, Nigel in a coma.

** Arctic Monkeys - R U Mine? **

 

> I go crazy ‘cause here isn’t where I wanna be  
> And satisfaction feels like a distant memory  
> And I can’t help myself  
> All I wanna hear her say is are you mine?
> 
>  

He was like a ticking time bomb, waiting to _explode_. All the shadows inside him, **devouring** him without an ounce of mercy, until he couldn’t breathe no more fresh air but instead, he would be feasted upon the **darkness** , the absence of his _existence_ , a nil void in a **vacuous** state, the only stimuli being his mumbled words of despair turning into whispers of cyclone. 

 

Until he could no longer wipe the mold of all the dried, falling specks of scarlet **crimson** on his pillow but instead, he gazes at the starlight above with no _expectation_ of freeing himself from the **marionette** of this tangled threads, _constricting, asphyxiating_ , despite the means of lengthening his sustenance beeping with poignant intent.

 

No longer he would hold onto the fragile strand that he once called hope, as even SHE couldn’t no longer fix back his broken shards that once **constituted** the makeup of his heart. Perhaps he wished to no longer feel _anything at all_ \- even the most genuine  **fabrication** of his intense love had been built upon the castle on the sand. For he has a **heart of gold** beneath all the charred remnants of his cage. For as it turned out, his greatest fear in life had become expectation. 

 

It had been exactly forty-four days since he left. There’s so many left unsaid between them; how Gabi’s fingers close in, inch by inch, yet still, there’s such a wide gap of  **miscommunication** , a mountainous wall, serving as the milky way upon their disparate universes. The worst thing is, that there’s nothing left to even fight over now and he still hadn’t gotten her out of his head. 


	137. Chapter 137

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nigel x Clarice. “are you sick of me for looking for you? or are you scared when you see me?”

_Why would he?_ is his default answer, yet he doesn’t make up his mind to offer a scathing retort. The wind would gasp, the tree would shiver in his zoned-out reverie as the residual fire ceased to dance a long ago. The waters waded no more and his heart had been **shaken** and  **overworked** enough, because the world knew he had lost her terminally. 

Yet, such wasn’t the case as his own bone and marrow have danced with her agglomerating presence. The pulsating silence becomes ever more **strident** , as a perpetual migraine stirs up the closed safe where the flames of his burning memory as he’s stuck and frozen in the moment. He might need the light her presence carries, needing her to be here in the flesh. Even when his temperature might reach with uncannily spikes; stuck in the limbo of eternal inferno. 

He lays in the comfort of knowing her skin and what it’s like to feel completely content beneath the fragments of her breathing; he knows her body beating next to his, ALIVE with pulsations, as they become silhouettes of lovers, not of partners, certainly not of people who are engaged in secretive affairs. He hopes what they have is something beyond the bones they lay in, to forget the tainted hearts who had threatened to break them beyond mending. They both had been ripped open and he still embodies the sensation in his chest. How his own beats with such great measure against her back. 

“ _Neither_. I am usually the one who submerges beneath the fucking **shadows** and lets my heart sleep in the _darkness_.” Clarice might not recognize every damned thing he does and most often, he would studiously watch over her with a falcon’s gaze; fading into the background, with a spark of persisting warmth embedded in his charged hazel as he would often carry on with his endeavors. “And the profound emotion I face when I see you isn’t of fear. It’s inscrutable vernality. Not quite a renewed **comfort** , but something close to an absolute **understanding**.”   


 

 


	138. Chapter 138

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nigel x Mischa. Léon AU verse. "Just stay a little longer. Please."

With goosebumps on his arm and so many words rising up from his throat, he thinks he might choke. An unuttered scream in his mouth that Mischa will never hear, a deafening and lengthening silence he cannot fathom to break. His hair remains in tangles and the concrete is abnormally cold against his slanted form. The sliver of sunray is his jury, the faint halo of the moon his judge as his wavering, dewey eyes continue to follow her eyes, as if she had been his angel. His skin feels **furnace hot** , rapidly cooling down and charged, smoldering hazel remains so far away. _Could she ever hold his face in her hands and tell him that everything’s going to be okay?_ **Tear** the fucking words from his lips and draw out his residual  **anger** and **fury** as he surrenders himself to a brutal relinquishment. But no, their silence is thick and their velcroed hearts beat frantically and zealously as one. 

It is hopeless, for his quest for the free, for the wind to wrap around his yells and take them across the world where violence hadn’t been touched upon. His voice struggles to _rip_ _free_ , for bloody **shouts** and painful **liberation** is inches away. And his strident mind continues to suffocate in the tumultuous quiet as emptiness crawls. His heart sets a tempo like a drum, with faint _reverberations_. How his bones shake and rattle, this fragile heart **ache** and **break** , though no tears would fall as he would let the silence tell it all. 

As he lay dying, his scars and wounds blossoming like color field painting as his motionless eyes peer into the stopwatch dangling from Mischa’s neck. But maybe, just maybe - can you save me? There’s a **disassembling** taking place inside of him; as he’s unfinishing through his skin, all the dark risings of bruises and bone breaks constitute a compilation of  **complications**. All the mistakes, unfinished thoughts and half-finished remarks jumbling forth his dead brain, drowned beneath the mantra of hiding red inside his mouth, the pulsations after pulsations of gurgled words finally ejecting through entanglement of his being. “I love you,” and he comes apart, as he synthesizes a smile. 


	139. Chapter 139

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aftermath of Frigid Landscape.   
> Nigel x Mischa

The view out the windows from over Nigel’s shoulder was all Mischa could stand and think of. Her arms, tight and childish around him were miles away from her mind. Despite him being the house she calls home, the one she ways is her **happy place** , but lately, it’s been  _gloomy_  and  _weary_  because life has been cruel again. 

She has to spare herself that hse has to  **renovate**  and  **beautify**  it; change all the sheets and the curtains, tidy up their rooms and change the bulbs for brighter lights, make something out of what is broken, so that when she comes back, she’d know well that this is her home - the one she’d come to when she’s tired and give more love than she expects. 

Yet, the concept remains like a  _ghost_  in the distant light of a lantern on a road of cobblestone. And the mist is  **thick** ; the shadows of her past fragrantly whispering down the valley as her slender arm stretches skyward. Crying for a drop of life, for clouds to part and a kiss of light to shine down upon her. She feels like living in the ashes; all around her, there are footsteps deep in the dust, tracing all the ways she’d lost as she would struggle to get out of the  **labyrinthine**   **murkiness**. All the hues of the sky before dawn and comfort of the rising sun becomes only a  _faded memory,_  for her eyes are bound to the sun, remains blind still, yet she feels its searing heat burning and resonating everything she touches. 

Nigel smiles, with rust on his iron fist, a  _wraith_  and  _wrath_  coating his tongue as he tastes what the society has left - **bitter, boiled, blistered, corrosive** as he still tends to the bullet burrowed into his pectorals. The murmur of the city below echoes through the ambient, a gray day resonating as a single drop of rain pierces and puddles around the windowsill, shrouding in further mist as the color continues to drain out from the world. Every breath becomes  _wet_  and  _silent_  and how Mischa becomes so  **alive** , in deep satisfaction. 

Yet, she finds herself climbing over the wall, descending into the abyss and trying to avoid stepping on any remaining pieces of her broken heart. The mist is only a growing extension of Nigel’s ABSENCE and she supposes, she could try to suppress her feelings, but  _how is she going to bury something that’s so ALIVE and always fighting back?_  Asking questions is much easier than taking the time to find the right answers or accepting the ones that were already given, so she hides behind  **anger**  and  **confusion** ; both unreliable narrator on their own. 


	140. Chapter 140

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nigel's dream (before meeting Gabi Ibanescu in person while he's recovering).

His body isn’t an  **apartment**  that anyone can rent without ever signing a lease; as his scars aren’t fucking disappointments. It’s not okay to talk about things that happen behind the closed doors. These are all the hard lessons for a child to learn and his own life from that point had been riding in the car with someone who’s supposed to take him home.  _How long had it been when he realized he’s going the wrong way?_  Only, he’d never known what home is or even which way to go. His life had been always at its  **zugzwang** ; his home,  _demolished_ and  _degraded_  into something that would shackle him forever. He wants to be in the driver’s seat with steering wheel in front of him, but he doesn’t know which turn to make. He is horrendous with directions, for his life had been a road trip with no GPS attached. And he’d have to find meaning in the journey. 

He would  **never settle**  and he will  **never fail** , despite being jeopardized by his own strength and personal integrity. And he finds galloping, galloping, in time to a perfectly hidden melody - fine and glorious as only he was able to hear the new music  ****that coalesces with his blood, along with the musky tang of his own sweat and adrenaline, still fueling and propelling his trembling steps - he still feels the invisible threats of bullets and blades hovering too close upon his viscera and neck, the most vulnerable parts of his body.

A continuous line traces along the curve of his neck and  _overpasses_  the pin-up girl tattoo over his carotid. He’s not entirely  _unscathed_ , as the **searing throb**  rushes through his side, along with his grip upon the makeshift tourniquet, hastily put on the place to hold the tearing stitching in place.  **The glorious music** , the mantras of his blood spilling in rivulets become the Red Sea against the glint of the silver. The hilt of the pocket knife had been  _broken_ , and its jagged edge protruding through the fibers of his shirt. With each quickened breaths, the gash seems to breath with its own life, like a fish’s gill gasping for oxygen.

And how it kisses him like he’d never experienced before. Such deep, caressing response resonates as it surges right through his heart. From the opposite road, the unknown face pulls him closer to her and allows him to listen to her heartbeat. The fucking  _heavens_  would rage from  **disappointment** , because his heartbeat is way too louder than the cascading rain - it’s as if the sky had been leaking - a  **thunderous cadence** calms him all too well beneath the rushing stimuli, barraging upon him like freight trains. 

He owes her his _fucking lifetime_  and lifetime is all he’d got. So on this infinite twist of happiness and hapless pain, he would always wake up rushing his eyes open every single morning just to give her the gift of his sunrise. For she could kiss him and she doesn’t have to guess and doubt, nor ever utter a word. She could take him and he will not utter anything. He would let the rain  **generously pour**  themselves down for them as if they are aching to take part on their  _unrivaled_   _hopes_  and  _dreams_. Let them make their vows and kiss like they owe time and destiny for putting everything in place like **scattered puzzles** coming together in cohesion.


	141. Chapter 141

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nigel x Gabi from Gabi's perspective. Nigel's DEATH.

**“Some of us were born with tragedy in our bones”**   


If only the thought of the unexplained  _dark science_  the world has promised had not come true, she would not have been swallowed by the arms of God, of  **vengeance** , of  **tainted love** and of  **obsession**. My thoughts remain somber through the icy chill licking over my spine, yet the burning stardust from Nigel’s gaze confirms such clamorous kicking; despite the gripping frequency of petrified gaze, of inevitable death. Such accumulated trust and dust wiped off with a single gesture; meaningful and genuine, dripping with poignancy, yet it lacks irreversible WANT. Once-feeling that devoured and consumed her, disintegrated her body into his. Breathing him in with such impatience, with no more hiding in secret places as there would be no **safe haven**  except the crook of Nigel’s neck. 

* * *

There were  _innumerable days_  when Nigel’s expansive back basked with the streaming sunlight hitting on his coppery skin, his head turned sideways against Gabi’’s frame, cheek firmly pressed against the other’s upper arm. His ashen blonde hair veiling across his serene face,  **devoid**  of all the worries of the world. Facing the south, their house admits plenty of sunlight, and creates a  **thermal difference**  between both sides of the house with a natural ventilation, it stayed warm in the winter and cool in the summer. The glorious tints of autumn foliage outside the window as the warm tones reflect upon their unblemished bodies, his wife had been always the one to wake up first.

Relishing Nigel’s warm and strong breaths against her breast, Gabi’s finger glides across Nigel’s sharp features, not even a small line on his sharp-featured face - relaxed, hard and smooth like  **baked clay**. Long lashes gingerly laying against the soft skin underneath, defined  _cheekbones_  and narrower  _nose_  than what he had and his favorite part of all, his pretty rosy and full lips,  **so sensual and seductive.**  A natural charmer. Gabi had to admit, Nigel had even more  _gorgeous_  features than most  **androgynous girls**  in the club did, although she knew that Nigel didn’t ever want to be called by that word.

Knowing Nigel wouldn’t be waking up soon as he stayed fast asleep, Gabi slides off from Nigel’s warmth and grabs the leather notebook that Nigel had gifted her as her birthday present. As half a year had passed from that, the  _stationary_  had been already filled with clients’ numbers, notes, scrawls and sketches in various degrees of completion. Mostly the club’s interior, with the renovation well under way, the little tweaks here and there along the main corridor and the first floor’s grand stage with the raised stage, where DJs and other local bands to perform. Transforming into a venue/cultural center as a facade with a baccarat and poker jack floor hidden from the public’s view, the multi storey establishment held many private rooms and suites, one of which would be Nigel’s, where they currently were. 

As an amateur portraitist, some posed portraits of Nigel’s were there too that would need more time, but mostly, they were filled with Nigel on the bed, on his side, some curled up against the duvet on the backside with his angular profile, some on his back with a hand loosely around his abdomen, splayed open and often, like this where the light had been warm, a scorching Romanian summer upon them with no cloud in the sight, with his morning glory pressed against the sheets, with the slight curve of his narrow waist and hips prominent with his side turned away from him.  

Still feeling the previous night’s musk thick against the air, Gabi ingrains Nigel’s pose in his brain. The way those luscious hair halos around the head, bit of cords surfacing through the other’s neck and arms, the subtle  **musculature**  accentuated by the  _contrasting pattern_ it makes on his broad muscular back.  

* * *

She doesn’t have to  _claw_  her way out of the  **wretchedness**   **of humanity** that Nigel would have faced and be entombed beneath the **dripping darkness**. While it may not lurk with grinning sharp teeth and the thick haze of portent maliciousness, she wants the seething purple-gray storm clouds that fester like bruises with a ill sun peaking through gone from their lives. Nigel does not  _strive_  to  **grasp**  such ethereal occurings of light, for he’s an **incarnate of night,**  a beastly feral creature of midnight with invasive hazel causing more pain and affliction than one could ever deal with. And Gabi feels her road narrow down like clogged artery; SHE might force her presence towards the descension of genial sympathy and melody of humankind. 

And she doesn’t want to  **perpetually burn**  against the sun. NIGEL BURNS and burns and burns, like a  _deranged star_  about to detonate.

She stands deeply rooted, failing to tear her gaze away from the cacophony Nigel has chosen to exit the world with. People blaze and fade away, but an individual like Nigel doesn’t fade - for he held such immense power within him, even when he had been used and tested beneath it, the extent of it had lingered beneath the immovable radiance of hazel, still retaining a  **prodigious**  amount of  _fervor_  and  _poignance_. Her own smears against the thickened pool of blood wetting the tips of her shoes. 

And her heart’s intent may have spilled so much so that the measure of her next love, and the next, and the next one would ever be the same.  **For Nigel was her first love** , with all the _sweat-_ s _tained sheets_  and  _blood_  and  _smoke_  between them and the graphite strokes of her journal still retains, despite her change and  _development_ ; an innocent girl once, no longer swept under the bristled world full of  **anger, hatred** and  **unstable anomaly**. 


	142. Chapter 142

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Post-Canon Nigel, Nigel x Gabi

  * **Never come back. Never.**



He radiates like the core of the sun beneath the blinding illumination,  _brimming_  and _expanding_ ; into the vast, blue oblivion. As he clutches the sanest thought he could conjure, without any thought of severity at his failed love pursuit. How he foregoes this _disappointment_  for it had spared him his  **mediocrity**. For he isn’t some kind of a knight in a shining armor searching for a maiden - the princess - in stunning fine clothing with gems around her neck and diamonds on her hair. 

Yet, she remains like a  **siren** , singing SIREN’S SONG even in his  _unfathomable unconscious_. Beneath the gentle brush of tragedy scathing and scraping this skin and creating its lasting lash; caustic, slowly grazing to inflict its weak abrasion to scald and swelter upon his flawed appearance. Where the red and itch spread  _obnoxiously_  like a **nervous death**. A slowed DEATH - as his eyes would emulate the stars through the smoke-filled sky as embers from **wildfire**  surround him. Though they remain hidden, he knows they do not wander; he’s memorized where they lay above him. For they paint like his heart, his sea, awakening his body and soul - as he had willingly let the ammunition to pierce his own heart when he could barely trust her with all the lies. And his body remains  **SEIZED** , to prevent him from doing anything rash and irreversible; for he would forever be entrapped in one of those flashbacks. 

He often questions the  **validity**  of staying for the beauty alone, for if settling in feeling the sand shift beneath him will bring sparks to his soul. Yet, he wants to  **breach**  and  **break**  his own bones against the **cold gravel**. For he had been strong once; with light in his heart and with his soul on fire. He would knock on the Limbo’s gate and burn in hell, lest he lets the rain erase his smeared shadow upon the world. 

He knows his heart still races, he still hears the music chugging along the track of his brain. He almost DIED, yet the world  _refused_  to remain quiet; the world remained strident, millions of different stimuli going off like  **flaring nerve endings** as they yanked him back into reality. A _husk panic_  persists, as if the world had noted his failed death as his fingers wraps around a solid white, pristine sheet as he manages to open a sliver of his conscious.

Memories manifest into flames, into the  **roaring cascade**. Fire means NOTHING to Nigel, yet he is cocooned within more LIES with each breath. NEVER COME BACK, NEVER. Their **continuous**   **assault**  had built him a physical barrier, but  _concurrently_ , he wants to shatter and pulverize the walls into ashes. He would rather rise from the ashes and remain **complacent**  in the morphing world,  _invasive_  and  _lucid_  like his smoldering gaze. 


	143. Chapter 143

**Tabula Rasa of Existence**

 

**i.**

Hell, all the injuries were  _consequential_ \- but he couldn’t bring himself to get out of bed. It wasn’t even that his injuries were particularly wretched or excruciatingly painful.  **Physical pain** , he could very well handle. What he was absolutely  _unequipped_ to handle was the absolute wretchedness of mind; he couldn’t seem to get rid of it. It had only gotten into his brain and settled there, impossible to remove. He’d never unleash an ocean full of **overflowing ink** , for his halo had been drooping for a while now. Above all else, the  **dying supernova** of his collapsing thoughts remain caught in the star-embedded night, making the moon wane away. Even in the midst of  **collapsing galaxy**.

Its whispers constantly remaining in awe of his  **rapture**. 

 

**ii.**

It is one of those days where the sun seemed to be eager to play a trick. He lights a cigarette - the piercing white ectoplasm ravaged through the skies with rays of his exhale penetrating, intensifying the whiteness of the snow. Such fucking  _eyesore_ , without the welcoming warmth he had once welcomed with the cold fire crashing against his chestplate. Otherwise, the frigid air clinging around his skin is warmed in transient burn of the whiskey. His fingers no longer feels completely attached to the rest of his body, yet  _nonetheless_ , he was willing to sacrifice the comfort of his fingers to satisfy his **lifelong vice**. His fingers draw a “V” shape around the cigarette as he took a drag. Yet, his inside feels numb,  _remarkably_ and  _perplexedly_ numb. How he feels like dangling on a couple of heartstrings, waiting for the inevitable drop. 

Maybe it has already been  **dropped**. 

 

**iii.**

With an empty chest as cascade of crimson pours like the lightness of his fervent gaze, he begins to fade through the  **annihilation** of his blood cells. Rocks in his spine shatter beneath the amaranthine spectacle of widening puddle, beneath the  _telltale confetti_ of wilting rose petals donning the scattered, rumpled crown of hair. All the rust may have dulled the gleam of his facade, yet he feels every minute memories of bumps, bruises and severed static feed of his nerve endings perceiving the coarse hardness of the cement as his cursed existence remains beneath the mercy of the pendulum. Between the otherworldly illumination and a complete darkness, a nihilistic vision of his dismantled, savagely torn, dessicrated temple becomes a manifestation of  **a diabolic art**. Through bloodlust and beauty; the makeup of Nigel Lecter ignominously concealing his own yearning - all of his animalistic, untamed thrashing of a heathen drowns beneath such unparalleled affliction. 

Yet, the world does not collapse and folds on itself, nor with the unfurling looseness as the curtains seemingly rustle  **forever**.

 

**iv.**

Both of his hands are upon his **unbeating heart**  - yet, he hears the sound of the clock tick on and on, the sound of life connecting and weaving the song of his heart. Where does his fucking line of forgiveness go? He has too many mantras on this crumbling crust of stardust to hold onto the color of him. Skin like parchment paper; see-through and fragile, or like thin glass; one blow away from shattering into dust. He feels exposed, his heart visible to the whole world, vulnerable and pathetic. He’s sad and closed off; he doesn’t want anyone too close or he might crumple up into a little ball, kicked carelessly around on the floor. His jagged glass edge might cut anyone who comes near. Loneliness is not romantic; it’s not dreamy to be off by himself, longing for the day someone will finally see him for who he really is. How old wounds open wide like chasms, and he fears for the first time the space painted across his skin would be filled with exhaustion, against his hollow bone, the gaping sinew. 

His memories burn deep like the blood vessels, blue like the veins on his  **pale arms**. 


	144. Chapter 144

String lights flicker and glimmer, the sound of pigeons that had made a home in the grooves of his flat coo their songs. And yet again, the  **thriving pain**  suffices. It will never murder him, yet it will slowly  _overpower_ him, make him  _vulnerable_ and  _unguarded_. Making his eyes drop to the bedsheet, as pain manifests into something more than his body can ever bear. 

Perhaps it will  _consume_ him until his last being and pierce right through his heart as if a bullet had hit it. It had just missed his heart, missing  **pulmonary artery**  by about two inches. His glassy dew eyes linger in the entire cosmos, with only two of them its residents. And something  _growls_ , bound beneath the bloody confines of his wounds, **roaring fire** in pouring pain as even the collaboration of the unspoken love of hers and tenaciousness of his own wouldn’t ever be enough to quell the unending perturbation of of his stagnation. 

He knows what PAIN feels like; that fucking  **white-hot gelatinous lightning**  moving through his veins, burning pinholes for the light to shine out. He does not have to worry about _exsanguination_ ; yet he knows what it means to be UNABLE to breathe. Just like he once had been swallowed beneath the gallows of the tick-tock of the clock hammer. With a broken limb, seeking the moment of release as he had been drenched in cold sweat in a stifling night. Such aggrevation, such internalization makes him want to rip all of his appendages out, as he’d be validated by anger, instead of festive contentness. 

With hand pressed against the  **shifting tectonic**  of his breastbone, fluttering back behind the ribs, his vision remains hazy around the edges. He will futilely attempt to sleep with  **dying flames**  licking up the side of his ribs; it will be a type of warmth he can ENDURE, even with the heated, venomous stinging of wasps bloating his abdomen. And he  _feels_ it, above the impervious resonance of such HEAT grazing through and over his flesh, rough enough to make him bleed once again, the plump flesh of her lip gravitates towards his forehead, then down the length of his nose. 

Despite acid tearing away at the walls of his stomach as the wasps at the bottom of his belly multiply into millions, nothing buzzes and stings more than her gentle lips. Now his own edges of lips curving upward to meet hers - which causes him to BREATHE. And that alone should be enough. With the rest of the world asleep, the moon and the stars as only their witness. Contentedly stuck in the space between everything and nothing as they become the tudding of their hearts, the colors in his eyes, the languages they speak. They are the manifestations of the shifting seasons, drifting from one to another. 

And despite being deeply rooted with the soul shackle of sempiternal pain, Nigel is able to let this fucking pain  _fade_ and  _vanish_. For he’s allowed to be entertained beneath the **beautiful delusions** at the expense of his practicality and even to pacify his cynicism. 


	145. Chapter 145

He has never been one to stay in a particular place for too long; he’s a  **wanderer** ,  _a lost soul_ searching for something that he can never quite put his finger on. He’s perfectly fine with being a vagabond, because  **being free**  is his unspoken speciality. 

With his razor eyes dissecting the world, he spirals down into love with the salt of the ocean breeze in his hair and  _polished_ ,  _glimmering crystals_  as his eyes. The dance of his fingertips continue against the edge of his consciousness. The sunrise dances through his eyelashes and velvet skies with  **paint-dappled stars**  as roaring oceans and sea spray and cities glittering at night. 

And there is no single destination that can state its claim on him and if it tried, he would toss his chin up in laughter and exclaim with all of the dramaticism he could muster. The  **binding grasp** against the absentminded truth of his hand or the glacier edges of stone in his voice never looks back at him. 

A thousand devious thoughts paint through the canvas of his face. A  **quiet little knife** slipping between his ribs and he doesn’t believe it to be an accident. How the reality spins the web of the noose so fine. The  _back-echo_ of his mind containing his pleading tongue. _When does it end? When does it end? When does it…._

This is a  **bleeding** ,  **slow death**. He arches his neck and the noose does not bite nor slit it. And he wonders what he’s doing here, stuck beneath the impasse to be angled into this position where he aches for  _mercy or death_  at the hands of something that will grant him neither. 

Such  **nostalgic feeling** floats in the air, as bloody bruises color him whole. The eidolon of the mild destruction strikes the inside of his heart and the chambers fill with the porcupine knives. And he’s sinking in the fleeting silence of the night;  _with a warm body, sweaty skin_  and the _soft whispers_  pulsating as the war-claimed head droops. 

Upon initial impact, the  **blaring stare of the eye of Horus**  illuminates the headlights of the oncoming vehicles and his Ducati Panigale, merely reduced into the confetti of effervescent sparks with all the jumbled, tangled pile or metal rubble. How the  **darkened orbs of Set** come to pluck out Nigel’s own eye, from his bloodied and mangled body. 

How he succumbs beneath the thunderous shockwaves; ready and poised to be further ignited.  _Is this the end of his existence?_ In looming inevitability of death, there is a sense of  **connectivity** ; the human race is bound to experience such a similar mentality and physiological state. Neurons firing, synapses going wild, the body and the spirit going haywire. Once all the tangled web of synchronicity is revealed, no fear and loneliness prevail. And his gaze fixates with Medusa’s gaze, somewhere between the horizon and the meadow drenched with the dewy grass, lightyears away from his grasped, tunnel vision. 

The static found on city streets seem to be forever fading as the sharp bite of the wind briefly quells the radiating inferno. The sky keeps pulsating, buzzing with light pink hues as if was taken from his own flesh itself. 

Yet, the grand scheme of his being is not entirely lost in the intoxication of the battle, as the battlefield colors further with the thick black-molasses of the dripping fuel and rivulets of lifefluid, carrying him across memories and lifetimes of uneasy and unsteady breaths. 

He remains beautiful and ephemeral, beneath the ghostly shadow as swelling veins revolt against the servitude of helplessness, of its dominance. Yet, his hands cannot withstand the resilient heat, as it leaves craters on his heart and degrades his bones until the only thing left of him is the soft bristles of tissue.  


	146. Chapter 146

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Infiltrated, Consumed World

Hands gravitate towards hers, fingers  _intertwining_ without ever trying and lips touching without ever thinking. Whatever ‘ _soulmates_ ’ are, Gabi Ibanescu is more than that to him, because without her, his being would have been  **pulverized** and became sludge beneath the gutter. It’s as if his heart is a  **black hole** , the kind that pulls him into the darkness with no way out, but the gravitational force is so great, there is no escape for him. And even if scientists discovered a way out, he would never want to leave. For the  **once** - **barren field**  of his heart had been planted a bulb. Gabi let it blossom within him and in time, he became a garden beneath her green thumb.  

And he’s never afraid of  _descent_ nor  _death_. And beneath her cerulean blue-gray, he plunges into her; _without pain, resentment and anger_. She never tore down his walls, but she left him flowers at the base of it every day until he was ready to tear it down himself, just so that he could finally and fully and wholeheartedly  **experience** them. 

Their coalsecence, their unification is something more than closing a chapter, and it feels like the whole book has come to a horrible, bitter ending. And he often doubts he would ever survive another one like this; where everything engulfs and escapes him. The **quiet rebellions** in his mind whispering  _nothing_ is real because all that he’d been doing is to live strictly in his own damn mind. How his gaze casts away akin to snow falling, so much like stars filling the empty crevices of the world that no one could easily imagine. For he lives with a  **whirlwind** that scatters the snowdrift; he can never fathom to predict the  _damage_ that he himself will do. 

There are so many pages yet left unwritten, and while he’s still struggling to turn the page on this, the  **most glorious chapter**  thus far had to come to an end. He knows it must be done, for he’s  _nothing_.  **Fucking nothing** without all the cherished memories, all the trophies of his resurgence shotgun down as she pulls the trigger and noose tight. _Is this his inevitable death?_

He’s made of skin and bones and stardust and moonlight and the fucking love on the inside. He’s made of  **hopelessness** and **lost opportunities**  and too much  **teeth** , too little smile and caressing fingertips. And they come and go - trespass and don’t get caught - as they please and he continues to do what he does the best. Without the desire to keep his heart in mind as self-annihilation pulsates through his melancholic features. He let himself fall, knowing the consequences; because all this pain feels so familiar and he wants to let himself go of this familiarity. 

All of his longing, aggrandized  **misery** taints the color of his blood, and he relishes the power and destruction it leaves in its path. Still, it’s her eyes, her music, her presence that absolves his soul; for he is  **chaos** and  **conflagratory fire** , but she is the safety and warmth upon the frosted stillness. And how the stench of his grief hangs on the air like stale smoke - like a dull knife, cutting him slowly with great effort. He’d  _bleed_ then - through fissured bones and sullen heart. All the unknotted, spilled content would spill forth the cage of his ribs, as  **beastly, putrid monster** poisons all of his love and he ruins every damned fucking thing he touches. 


	147. Chapter 147

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Where Nigel visits Charlie in 'the zone of mutuality.'

Her shadow remains a  **dark stain**  upon the  _flaming milieu_  of his own, set alight by the hot touch of the diminishing sun, still fully  _erupting_ and  _permeating_ into the unwinding road in popping bursts. How the flesh of the petals would burn and burn, both  **lovely** and  **hellish** ; in tendrils of yellow and orange. Except for that black patch of extinguishing coolness in the shape of an androgynous silhouette he does not have to confirm as Gabi Ibanescu. 

The truth beats down on him; as corrosive agent spills forth his heart and a part of his heart freezes over,  **without hope**  and  **unforseeable future**. He feels like the other portion of his heart is on fire burning with gasoline that cannot be extinguished with a  _madness_ , conquering confidence. His core is resting against its cage ablaze and smoke fills his lungs like miasma and exhaling in grey clouds that tell of how he’s far from being fine and the wholeness of his being diminishing as his veins scream for her. It’s just another  _thrill_ of empty promises against his eager spirit. 

She’s not quite gone, yet every midnight secret and glassy tear and desperate touch is dissipating into the air of yesterday and today, he can’t do a single thing about it. His entirety had been robbed and he seeks a place of his youth; a **long-repressed corridors**  of cacophonous chaos and mayhem of drug-addled delirium giving his breath root to a pulsating motion from head to chest to intestine. His wicked, delusional love makes his body to break the set rules and it stays perpetually awake, disregarding torporous exhaustion. 

His tacit love is fully expressed, the word ‘ _fucking love_ ’ hanging on the thread of his fading happiness, just as the tactile, perceptible smoke curling in tandem with his exhalation. Through his touch against her, the sensual brush of fingers could tell anyone just how much he yearns for her radiating beauty. Yet, he finds himself  _submerged_ in the  **macabre** ;  _viscera_ , swallowing his own blood and bile and wearing scars on his skin. He breaths  **death** like waving knives upon Charlie’s viewfindeer. And thee glamorized black mood of his soul is the only one he has; with all the hardened scar tissue and needles to the nerves and in his addled brain. 


	148. Chapter 148

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nigel's sex fantasy, Nigel x Gabi

Letting the cascade of water cup down the length of his prominent features, the sensation is both strange and refreshingly different as the dialectic need between craving for  _privacy_ and the need to submerge himself in a  **passionate coalescion** with her. Abruptly withdrawing his fingers from the small folds of her sex, his palm reflects a movement of a slithering worm, gliding along the curve of her hipbones as she pivots around from his  **relentless grasp**. For time exists in order that everything doesn’t happen all at once and space exists so that it doesn’t happen all to him, yet he’s along the  _ocean_ of her fluids, as minute quivering could be felt through the flat of his tongue, her heartbeat and agglomerating scent of **blossoming flowers**  intensifying as he peers upon her beautiful face under the glittering light. 

More he wants to shut the whorl of the irises and pupils drawing helix-like movements, all of his senses seem to spike overdrive; Gabi’s lightly flushed, elevated heartbeats palpitating through their adhered skin, front to front. He could practically see and hear the unfiltered stars being swallowed in tandem with his **unrelenting onslaught** , its rhythm  **unpredictable** , with strong hands cupped right around the gentle curve of her hips.  _So why not shut off his visual onslaught and let him immerse in the wholesome sensation of her fingers moving through him like a sighing breeze along the parched sand?_ As his own rhythmic thumping and the faintest pivot of his own heart thrumming about, he fights to keep his broad stance and having his deep, almond-shaped lids to open back up. 

Through the veil of opalescent foam and the lingering pressure of her nimble, firm fingertips still leaving the trail along his scalp, he looks through the curtain of ashen blonde back, as the dripping water turns to become the  **sonorous tunes** , mimicking the  _serenity_ of the occasion. He would always dance along with this rhythm, for as long as the melody lasts. Fingers curled around her hips, he sinks against the tiles of the shower booth,  _glissading_ through her abdomen to reach between her legs to mold his lips like a suction cup.   

Feeling her weight shift as her upper body looms over his slouched figure, he doesn’t have to look up to confirm that whatever he ministered her had been effectively working. Hot and fast with the press of skin, with sweating passion in the night as whisper of a slow, quiet waltz held at arm’s length become suffling and tumultuous beat inside his head as oxygen depraves as his quickened breaths tickle the engorged flesh. A hand still holding and planting her in the place, sealing them into an  _invisible mold_ , another hand moves near where his lips had been molded in the shape of **elongated almond** , where the peak of her sex flutters as his talented tongue caresses the velvety flesh. As light as gossamer trail disembogues as endless trails roll off his broad shoulders and dip of the expanse of his back, as aching length arches upward, and he fights; fucking fights to simply thrust fast and deep into her to leave her staggered. 

Each moan propels his tongue to stretch her tight walls, probing with gentle swirl of his tongue, the tip tasting the familiar  _saltiness_ as his hypersensitive body takes in  **every infinitesimal twitch**  and  **paroxysm** of her walls. The muscles tense and relax, her heartbeat carries through as he works into her slowly, taking all the time in the world. Contrary to how he likes to carry himself on the world, hard and fast, immediately going in for the  _kill_ , he savors every hitch and affectionate caress from her.

Tracing the outline of her clitoris and along the bump, he takes a whiff to take in her unique scent. His flat tongue covering more area as his fingers gently mark crescent shapes along her torso, adding more  **invigoration**. The heated steam cocooning them whole along with more wet viscous fluid seeping out of her as building anticipation and his own enthusiasm soars as he allows heightened silence to linger. Fingers curved in, he perforates through the tight walls, alternating between the digits to feel the  **exquisite warmth**  surround and pool over. It  _deluges_ faster than the whirling water swerving around their mingled bodies and even more quicker to replace it. And he stands tall, all six feet, upon the swarming waves as peering moonlight glistens the entiretty of his  **windswept hair**  and  **animalistic glint** embedded upon the corner of his eyes and lips. 

**Placidness** still surface, yet the reflection of his arms suffice his inner needs and dreams as strong biceps gently  **choke** her - with a flurry of muttered curses, the steady push of his length claims her from behind. There may be a  _loud snarl_ echoing through his cranium, yet his calloused hands remain gossamer as he cups her breast and descends downward to delve further into her  **resounding heat**. With renewed hungry ferver, he buries himself into her, to be scattered into the outstretched hands of hers as she braces with an  **equal measure** against him as  _sharp tug_  of his hair becomes a  **catalyst** to unfurl himself into her as blood empties. His body trembling, his mind buzzing as reality begins to escape.


	149. Chapter 149

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stumbling Into Bed and Through His Life || Nigel x Gabi

The  **clockwork** of his mind has never been a matter of NEED, but a matter of WANT. Wanting to feel her gaze upon him as he enters the crowded room, the  _cacophonous hubbub_  of the atmosphere drowning as undulating white noise that goes by one ear and exits the other; as he wants her hand reaching for him even when he’s not near. The  **mellifluous drip** of the soulful music resonating at the club may be soothing, yet he  _yearns_ for the whispering honeyed and accented words of his beloved ringing against his eardrums. 

How he wants the sensuous curve of his lips to press kisses downn her spine, as her **guidance** steers him AWAY from this stormy, tumultuous messy life. He wants her sweet mouth tasting his, without the black surrounding like icicles clinging to every inch of this being. 

_Is it true what people say, that love consumes them all_ ; as it all begins with a  **spark**. A  **flash** , from stormladen clouds descending as the golden light penetrates through the silver glint of his violence. A  **warmth** he remembers, yet cannot quite fathom to understand as it had so long faded beneath the unadmitted suffocating fear. If he were to  _touch_ it, it would fade to **smoke** ; a ghost and nothing more. 

He would only take the love-stained covers to his chest, nothing else, tangled along the ruddy copper of his skin to alabaster of hers; with a piercing new day approaching too soon as all the loud, vibrant colors shake the  _bleakness_ and  _isolation_ of being fucked away from the earth, with everything a touch of grey, a **splattered mess**  of life cut from his body. 

Blue with beginnings, that’s what Gabi entitles him every approaching day and night, as her music whispers  _sunshine_ in his ears. Raining  **heaven** and  **hell** along his flesh as it cups the heat of his pleasures and filling his soul with ease, as every hardened inch of him makes him believe in the ‘ _always_ ’ of their love. And how he stumbles into bed as if he perpetually belongs there; ears on  **fire** and cheeks of  **napalm**. The heat does not spread, as  _extremities_  lose feeling faster than a shotgun blast between the eyes. 

As  **explosive release**  causes him to desperately tap out incoherent words with already incapatated eyes refusing to  _adjust_ , he turns instead to sounds and shapes, towards the breaths whose pace remains  _concurrent_. And she is the  **sea** with all the shiny lures and he is but a newly discarded shell,  **frozen** in sand as she tosses ships about at will and makes all of his jagged edges emooth. 

He’s  _bathed_ , soaked through to the **bloody marrow**  of his heavy, exhausted bones. Such **maddening cruel**  game she plays, as beads of sweat explodes in tandem with every one of her move. Every move is  **checkmate** in  _naked exploration_ through his thoughts and bruises, swelling and worsening. She’d both  _unsettle_ him as  **thunder** continues to clash unabashedly against two silhouettes. As he continues to make contact with hot breaths and warm sheets, though it arrived a long ago, he hopes against  _diminished hope_  that the morning never comes. He marvels at the contrast of him and her; as he curls to spoon her like a cat and ivory skin, as happy clumps of clouds and hooded sky, of bright white fog clears to repel the growing **darkness**. 


	150. Chapter 150

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A memory about their first heartbreak (NPC: Elena Enache)

 

**Elana Enache**  has always liked the sense of  _playfulness_ that goes with tantalization of teasing and sexuality. Her dream has been becoming a  _burlesque_   _dancer_ and even before that, she began learning ballet when she was three years old. Later on, when puberty hit, her attention shifted to  **hip-hop** and  **contemporary** ; so it was natural for her to become so attuned with her slender, lanky body, which created immense self-confidence and assuredness. She could move like no other, for  **music** breathed in her, through her. 

She’d meet Nigel when he had just climbed himself to become a  **prominent notoriety**  in this particular sector of Bucharest, where all the wasted  _heartbeats_ directed towards pleasuring the carnality and corporeality of tingling electricitty, as the ambient would thrum with the rapidity of blackened amoral energy. Almost  **invisible** , yet those who get intoxicated in the lecherousness of it know it all too fucking well. None of the  **tamed morality** in the boxed monochromatic walls, only to come alive beneath the sweeping and flashing technicolors of the artificial neon lights and spotlights. 

And she’d find herself a  _spot_ , where such a high turnover of staff occurs due to the nature of the work. Unlike other girls who went their ways to get their breast augumentations, she’s rather decent with her figure; with  _curves_ , but definitely narrow than most of the  **voluptuous girls** that flaunt their assets. But she is the one who is actually  **proficient** in the art of pole dancing and makes more money than any of the other girls, all cash in hand without having to declare her taxes. 

Eventually, Nigel falls deep in love with her, because she’s strong-willed, independent and stubborn like him. But it does not mean that she is free from the vicegrip of the profession’s notorious vice; alcohol plays an enormous part in any case, because as a stripper, drinking every day is a given and she’d get cut if she receives a drink from a client. And naturally, everything renders more  **pleasant** and  **easier** with it, despite she was meant to pleasure and be compensated for her hard work. 

The guests would offer her things first, then she’d block everything all out as one thing leads to the other and Nigel isn’t the one to be  _sympathetic_ of all the physical love and attention of a female that clients seek for with such hefty sum of money. While  **no intimacy** (kiss, caress, etc) aren’t allowed in  _any circumstances_ , that does not mean she refuses to have  **normal standard sex**  or a **fucking blow job**. Clients only can’t ejaculate and that stays off any of the fucking rooms. 

But Elena  _knows_ , the regulars are there for her and her only. They’d withdraw to a private room to drink something and would kiss there as well. And Nigel isn’t the one to  _disregard_ such **vivid imagination**  gnawing and scratching his subconscious as he’d fiind out. They’d capitulate on everything, beneath the embracing fragrance of sex and suppressed fire of Nigel glaring to elicit further rampage. And such fury that overbrims the void of his mind, and he’d be so complete on his own, without her and her not-so-secret lover tainting one of his prestigious rooms with a second deceitful heart beating, away from him. 

And he does not choke nor break from it; it’s just nature of the strippers and it has been his own damn fucking fault for loving such a mirror-image of a woman who he couldn’t even contain. Such rampant surge of fury becomes  _instantaneous_ as two decisive headshots render them into  **naked, tangled corpses** , instead of engaged in an ecstasy of little death. And he’d strip her of everything; the bone-white throne of her place as he’d burn her with his fire within his entire grasp. He’s the destroyer and a slayer, a **lover of death**  among the desolate walls of emptiness. 


	151. Chapter 151

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A Beautiful Contradiction || Nigel x Gabi

There was no matching his cantankerous volatility over time. Unbeknownst to him, he learned his own weaknesses. He didn’t act upon them at first, for he bidded his time, collected his thoughts that he could truly claim to be his. He lets himself believe that the **incapacitating injury** had taken every string of his sanity. He’d gone past the  **breaking point** and had died thousand tiimes and came out the other side with the ability to truly say he was indeed  _alive_. 

How he’d grown to the idea of his  **mortality** , in such  _wicked_ ,  _malignant_ way. And how he’d slip away and further away into his  **vampiric sleep**. As days were nonexistent and remained beneath the lulling phantasm; he’d seek the light of day and diminished beneath the illumination of such  **uncontrollable proportions** by being close to her. He wants to leave this infernal, bloodied and nonsterile dream. The blade that had once marred his flesh wouldn’t be the same as this fucking ache in his chest as he’d rather become the casuality of love. 

The scattering of clouds would break among the disappearing contour of his  **vehement solidity** , as vibrations ring deep inside him, as he becomes the vessel of flaring nerves himself. How his energy and its beastly fervor beneath him synchronize from clashing elements of parallel universe, where jabbing coldness melts beneath the  _warmth_ and  _comfort_. The gust of wind may fan his flame, but lack thereof couldn’t ever dim his fire. 

The air in his lungs fuel his flaming heart, arising from the voolcanic depth is of beautiful and organic, never reduced into the vapidity of choreographed action and reaction. He often walks the desolate, scorched earth with his element of fire; with its **destructive force** , fueled from the depth of  _hate_ and  _rage_ he lets his flame burn everything in his wake, including himself.

And his flames are now at rest, triumphant from all the dream of a wasteland of nightmares and hallucinations, illuminating with the intensity of the past wounds, but with cooler flares as the flame of steady stream captures his psyche with such grip, such intent that he’s awaken out of the asylum of his confinement.

The cinder of his _controlled blaze_ now becomes an ectoplasm through the curling smoke between his index and middle, and he curves through the entrance in his  _imagination_. Not a single word whispered in despair, as his scattered spirit comes together with ashes hitting the floor. And he smiles, without the  _calculative curve_  of his lips or the speed of his heartbeat - how he aches for her in this musty grey afternoon to feel her hand and watch the clouds roll by. He may be sick of not fucking knowing, yet he could be stuck forever in this **beautiful dance** , this calamitious romance in a  **beautiful contradiction**. 


	152. Chapter 152

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I Rise, I Rise, I Rise, Endlessly || Nigel x Gabi

His mind is racing, yet the salt drips linger upon the empty lips behind the steamed oxygen mask without the **residing soul**  behind it. Across the  _chasm_ of that very intensive care unit he lays, that incessant beeping, along with the blue-gray of Gabi’s eyes and immaculate ambiance of the blinding white walls are what devours him. For that moment, all the  _lost_ , _wandering_ and  _lonely_ soul of his finds back the way back to reality as he valiantly fights through the darkness, which had been quietly observing upon his **strewn limbs** and all the **woeful sorrowness** that drowned him whole. **  
**

His willpower was a wretched thing; he tumultuously feels, experiences jabbing and incinerating pain sweeping like a whirl of all-consuming wildfire and feels the adamant grasp of the temptation through every inch of his pulsing veins.  _How easy it would be, for him to slip into that other side where no more of his **hurricane** ,  **chaos** and  **storm** resided and for him to accept that fostered submission, along with the change of his heart?_ Futilely quenching his resounding thirst with an invisible swallow as his adam’s apple slowly sinks, the burn is even more so aggravated by the gravelly sensation lingering inside his throat, along with a hint of copper. He might cough up a  **tight elongated cylinder**  of concentrated heat, along with the whirl of smoke from the pit of his core as the torchlight extinguishes.

Eyes slipped shut, barely perceiving the world as he drags his uncooperative limbs as the ground beneath him turns into a sinking swamp, the mind continues to whirl and slowly spin like clockwork.  _Corroded_ and  _unused_ , the ratchet loose and hanging for the life of the existence. Like a music box’s notes trailing away into the thin air until it halts for good as his **wax lyricism** , consumed with words and its  **reserved**   **dedication** dies along with it. In the face of the most exquisite suffering, his mind still laces with her lavish bedazzlement of fallen droplets of condensed tears.

The flaying thread hangs suspended in the air, seeping strength and vigor and his utmost concentration along with it. Like a dwindling voice fading into the grandiosity of the dance floor, like walking on the teetering edge between the stark awareness and bottomless oblivion. The  **puppeteer’s string** threading into the fibers of his muscles, taking an  _absolute control_ as his own, in return, relinquishes as heavy drops of mercury weighs his appendages down. The sensation engulfs him beyond an  **euphoria**. He dreams over and over, the  **preserved moment** and every  _semblance_ of the whoosh as he fell, the clatter of his fragmented heart in sure silence, yet the potent dynamism of that powerful act had shattered his life.

So one day, the  **whipping wind** stirs within him on the dawn of his birthday, the sky still glistens with the fading stars and the world continues to watch his recurrent recovery. Taut V of his muscles easing as he bathes in a pool of his sweat and scents of his tanned flesh burning with the body’s defense, he floats among the vortex as invisible lashes pinch against the sensitive skin, as his half-lidded hazel makes an effort to gaze in the distance and sees a slanting ray spilling forth the narrow slit of the curtained windows. Just a crack of  _daybreak_ and like a  **preserved flower** , gradually retaining his intensity as fingers curl,  _delicate_ , perfectly **intact** and  **frozen memories** encased along his fingertips.  


	153. Chapter 153

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sempiternal: everlasting; eternal

The night is kissing him softly; it’s  _bright_ and  _comforting_ , as the aura continuing to blanket him with the sense of security. He’s shadowed underneath a safe duvet, with the stars stitched across the  **midnight azure** and the constellations are bursting into different flames. Yet, there’s no hitched breaths that tickle the crook of his neck, no thumping heart pressing next to his side, and not another body for his fingers to graze over the duvet-wrapped around her soul. 

Yet, there are no  _cries_ and  _screams_ and  _shrieks_ of his muscles, as there’s endless whispers of delicacy and the soothing ambience allowing him to close his eyes without a thorny prick drenched in his mind. No recurring thought of his  **lionhearted spirit** ripping apart again consumes him; he may have escaped another nerve of shattered glass, his side glittering **rivulets of blood** ,  _sequined_ by  **sharp agony** nagging day and night as he trails  **acid honey** in his wake. 

Beneath all the oxymoron and deja vu moments striking  _beyond_ all these years of hibernation; he’s still  **strong** , yet  _fragile_ , as he becomes  **fire** and  **ice** ; both end of the spectrum and every fucking thing in-between. And his world would continue to revolve like a six-shooter revolver, with his own world turning with a **juxtaposed cosmic mind-stare**  of his half-unconscious. 

And his mind remains  _submerged_ beneath the rippling iridescent gossamer veil, it’s his _safe haven_ \- even without the strokes of his own making, smeared upon the porous walls of the club. Nothing a cloudy **mystic whirl**  of obscurity and bombardment of blazing halos and radioactive stream of  **technicolor** wouldn’t solve. The time  _warps_ and the evanescence _manifests_ upon the stampede of zealous individuals, along with copious amount of confessions from his part. 

Even beneath the disjointed waltzing of  **stolen breaths** , thrumming  **palpitations** , quivering flesh and sweet exquisite  **release** of deadened nerves paint over the ceiling like a sand painting all become the **solitary delusion** when he’s actually wake with clarity and intensity in his eyes. With _each threatening press_  of his heart, the grains swirl and hurtle across the ambiance as a **lost cause**. Those technicolor full of walls become a  _mirage_ , a series of hallucinations with crushingly empty rooms, barren corridors and entirely absent of such _projections_ of people. 

It’s hard to talk about the  _loneliness_ he feels, as he sits up in his office, blowing fucking smoke rings with everyone else enjoying themselves only a few walls away. How he makes _tornadoes_ out of fog as he fills the darkness with a **gray haze** ; and he may remain like this forever, alone and numb until he dissipates into the vapor. 


	154. Chapter 154

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Honey Bones || Nigel’s nose scar

Perception becomes inherently  _irrational_ , as he offers up his unadulterated interest, his genuine interest that abides him to whatever might be his present reality. Yet, such limited self lacks  **finesse, composure** , despite having attenuated drive and fuel as the truth soon crushes down upon him. The bare knuckles aren’t as fueled with  _striking velocity_ as his defined muscles lack herculean strength - the method of his own calamative  **madness** does not derive from surging  _bursts of power_  nor  _vehemency_ , but of calculative measure and  **skin-embedded experience**  and reactive measure of  **instinct** that still sings through his marrow and bones. 

Even the collapsing stars  _smile_ and  _sparkle_ with knowing, that such inexperience of his **haymaker** , with uncomfortable force and much longer exposure against his adversary would have him countered in no time. And  _polygons_ of shapes dance in undulating waves, becoming a gale upon his already shaken-up salty mayhem alongside with  **thickening copious blood** that  _sputter_ and  _flutter_ along the contour of his sculpted cheeks. Knuckles aren’t quite jagged like  **serrated saw blade** , yet still, how it  _instantaneously_ severs through his pride, his sinking heart, his newly-building identity. 

How his heart  **plummets** and  **absorbs** all the minute pinpricks of pain, like the desert soaking up all the rain. Every single drop of his sweat a catalyst in kindling a roaring hellfire that scalds his weak lungs as his throat parches dry. Warm nostalgia melts into the candlewick of his burning glow; diminishing, yet not quite extinguished. All the buzzing of his blood, hornets dancing around the peripheral of his cranium matches auras in his heart’s scream, streaming  ****the most _primal_ and  _spellbinding_  emotions; love, hate, contempt, anger came with such insanity bordering on  **histrionic slavery** towards him. 

Inconsiderate people don’t deserve his ounce of considerateness exuding from facial expressions or gestures. He could feel a trickle of sweat curving down the length of his spine, taking a  _curvaceous deep_  along his straightened and rigid posture as his head ever so slightly tilts, his eyes still unblinking as they were held by invisible threads. And it’s as if his own **inextinguishable warmth**  had been bouncing back through his veins and roughened fingers, impregnating with more  **flamboyant dynamism**  within the comfortable darkness. 

And he sputters, the curving blood manifesting into the pain or the beauty or the reality of empty chords, crawling out of his skin; all raw and red, peeling away old memories and burying them, hiding them from the  **animals** of his past. He still wears his heart like a fucking outfit, and his infuriated wrath  _intoxicates_ him as he becomes rapidly desperate for release. And disjointed time seems to flow; passing in a  _blur_ at times, with single images standing out more clearly as  **rattling specks of bones**  paint further aggrevated suffering upon his bruised, swollen face. 


	155. Chapter 155

_Where does he even begin to talk about the things that hurt?_

From the time he vowed to wed Gabi Ibanescu, all the  **looming threats**  were there. He would eventually find himself in a desert of perpetual temptation of  **amoral violence** , executing those who owed his  _organized crime syndicate_  as he would bear more  _wounds, scars, ongoing battles, wars, havoc, misplaced bones, undelectable memories_ and all the  **unaccountable loss** of beloved’s and his own region of nightmares. Because he’s a boy and unending stretch of intense sunlight simultaneously, as in he burns everything he has ever touched. 

Troubled boy with a **poet’s voice**  and sometimes the world is too  _cruel_ for kind words, but he **crafts** them anyway and  **carve** them onto his very own soul. For they have nothing against him now, as they decorate him in full bloom, so as to fool all of his resistances and defenses. 

Days of breathing feels a bit like **taking shots of whiskey** ; warm in a heavy way, a bit hard to swallow, despite the familiarity of licking burn and all the head-spin clarifying his mind, instead of him succumbing beneath it. Most often, he wakes up and the world just looks a little different, askew, a little off-center and foggy. All the **desolate wretched beauty** and the  **grief** of that keeps  _crashing_ into one another; an  **implosion** he can’t see through. 

Despite wanting to take a step back and achieve perspective, to attain a better view with perplexed and broken heart on his palms, all the remnant dreams scattered seemingly causes him to plummet to the  **ends of his chaos**  through and  _marginal hope_  to rise again with his agitators.  As he hurtles through the unforgiving expanse where there’s no mercy for his expanding corporeality, constellations of stars wheels by him and his form whirls like  **spinning ferris wheel** , gaining momentum as the boundary begins to blur with calamity of his unending force. 

Without a soul-trapped boundary as his repressed violence would fizzle. No tears, for he would already have tamed his nerves. For barely whooshed gunshots and flesh wounds that barely need stitching does not make him  _kneel_ against the desolate earth. Yet, how the spillage of blood becomes his own intoxicating addiction. With his breaths  _brewing_ , with his  **wildfire heat** becoming the crisp of boiling water and the injection of savory. 

And perhaps, through the inertia of his state of being striking such  **familiarity of chaos**  as he glimpses in that instant between attentiveness and sempiternal oblivion, he’d be forget and forgotten simultaneously. How his body would immediately jolt and collapse towards the unforgiving ground like a wilting flower. All he wants to do is  _forget_ , let go of such  **aggrevating affliction**  of his memory to become particles of sand wafting through the web of his fingers. And because  **pain** is something he knows like an old friend, he’d fucking pray that his lungs would just stop in the middle of the night;  _no mess_ , just an  **undetected sickness** unfurling silently as the wafting smoke of his cigarette permeates through his immovable, lingering gaze. Not quite empty, not quite vigorously alive. 

Even after he had lost much blood on the swift journey towards sinking descension, the  **pouring cascade of blood**  would drain from his skull and leave the skin on his face as thin, crumpled and transparent as standard A4 paper. He could see his own pallid reflection as the tenacious strands of nerves would never  _sever_. There’s  **no wavering** , sliding beneath the adamant grasp. And no fucking heaven would want his tainted spirit unfurling like  **frayed thread**  and no fucking hell would want  **deviated flame**  to absorb all the  _cataclysmic, unadulterated fuel_  that would burn through his adamantine bones, both sunlight and magmatic flame and all. 

He clings onto his soul with a strength born out of  _etched darkness, violence_ and  _desperation_. For he is fucking offspring of  **undeserved violence** , living through the  _polyphony of desolateness_ and  _bloodlust_. There are still things he needs to know, as he still bears the traces of myriads of hands that had gone through his form, a tangible record of being held beneath the rain of sorrow, being unsatisfied, been unvalued, now about to be taken care off. The  **detestable recollections** of all the life’s measure planted evidence still marring his skin.


	156. Chapter 156

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A mumble jumble about Nigel's eyes.

His hazel eyes have such  _propensity_ to take on numerous forms; they could become a manifestation of  **sunshine** , as he falls for a  _waking war_. His heart should know how romance is supposed to  _thrum_ , as it plays an **eternal serenade**  to mayday. Like Icarus, he’s  _burning_ and loving him will only burn her, too. And often, he himself would feel like living in a  **house of flames** ; for his soul knows of  _no rain_  and does not have a  _capacity_ to conjure one at will. 

They are capable of holding  **mellifluous warmth** and penetrating  _prismatic hole_  of  **burning light.** Just like he’d bask in the lulling warmth, they glitter like millions of scattered diamonds, a tranquil sea off Amalfi coast where  _saturated colors_ reflect through the irises of his light green. Despite not ever been there, his mind skids to it and somehow, the imagined sight of it makes his heart to twist  _painfully_ , instead of letting the **jumbled chaos**  of his mind settle into solace. 

They could also become a  _projector_ to his **skyscraper dreams** ; having the world beneath his fucking feet, with  _her_ in his heart and his solid  _vehement self_ in his arms, reigning over all the **opression, obsession**  and  **pain**. They must be all mere lies as the exposed azure sky of his aggrandizing hope settles within the swelling chambers of his heart. 

Everything translates to sharp streaks of lightning and burning rays of sun - yet that alone couldn’t even  **destroy** his  _firm_ and  _unyielding soul_. Voracious monsters would always back out when they see her glow even in the  **obscured forest filled with spoiled soils**  - _that’s what Bucharest essentially was_ \- and he knows for a fact that that’s why he fell in love with her **head over feet**  and he’s the one who loved her first. _As it was meant to be_. 

But  _most often_ , they hold propensity to hum such  **inexonerable rage**  at midnight, celebrating all the spells of strobe lights on the wall against the club’s thickening atmosphere, where _lecherousness_ and translucent shade of  _multicolors_ and  _stacked darkness_  rushes to cover everything up, except the silhouettes of people’s bodies. 

They reflect  **melancholy** ,  **sorrow** and  **pain** , yet remain to be carved perfectly; retracted beneath the  **sharp peak**  of his pale brows, the intensity of his  _penetration_ thrumming with such  **rebellous glower** ; a leap taker and he craves for dangers, an  **epitome of danger**. Reap and sow as the wildest beast devours what’s coming, as much as he craves for love of his fucking lifetime. 

Yet, he’s  _fragile_ , one should breach through his  **adamant barricades** and mend his wounds and love him. And he remains to be the eternal child; dream-walking through sleeping streets while he struggles with the thickening molasses between his organs, a sticky trap that nauseates. How he chokes on honeyed radiance of the early morning, the same viscosity of his blood thickened as this  **dizzy rapture**  pushes him more forwards  _sinking oblivion_. And how fire annihilates through all the nerve endings, through his honeycombed body, filling each hole with its own  **shimmering abyss**  as the frozen glass of his eyes swirl with neverending universes of ideas. 


	157. Chapter 157

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wept Into Nothingness || Nigel x Gabi

He has found the only way he can  **delete** from all of his memories and from all his life; The world seems to freeze, with a certain  _calmness_ clinging to the air.  **Peace** remains a rarity in Nigel’s world where it pulses with  **further chaos** , especially when he hears the call of the ocean and longs to drown. He stands amidst the glittering waves of it, as the moon splits into _millions of fragments_  as he stands amidst the aft, mesmerized by the rudders churning that black water into white form. His natal heart wants him to be filled him with  **fire** , but he searches through his diminishing memories and conscious and he cannot seem to find a _glimpse of crackling fire_ beneath the  **typhoon** of his stubborn mind with a drive of a freight train. 

Everything feels like  **knives in his skin** and everything peels away, for him to be rendered beyond  _irrepairable_ ; because his heart is like a  **neverending swirl of emotions** that burn long into the dark of night. He will always love intensely, deeply and fiercely, despite all the retold stories becoming full of anguish and sorrow. The charged hazel only knowing the stories of love through his resuccitation, now beholds and narrates  **crushing disappointment** and  **heartbreak**. 

He craves his heart to be lost beneath the surging sea, because he never knows how to temper his flame - so maybe, _it really is time for him to go_ ,  ****as this would be the night when the winds of ominous death would howl on outside and as he lays quietly on the softness of his **oblivion** ; he would remember the death’s presence beside him while he starts to build his vulnerability towards a state of  _quasi-tranquility_  and  _acceptance_. Although he would never admit it vocally, there is a part of him that yearns for it  **dearly** , a part of him that searches for it in the places he has been and all the people he continues to brush upon. 

Beyond the sea of faces, many would recognize his name and his scents; for his  _sad, glimmering eyes_  could come instantly alive with ravenousness of a  **feral beast** , with much more intensity, so unbearably capable beneath the frantic reverberations of his fundamental flame. The intermittent rhythmic gentle beep of the vitals machine trails the softened glow of the darkness surrounding him, guiding his eyes toward what is so crystal clear to him. 

The shock of stark red against the asphalt is still warm and thick like an oil spill in his reverie, retaining the sultry heat of the Bucharest summer. Like a feral dog sinking its teeth into his corporeality, he continues to watch the sun of his striking existence go down in murmurs as its waves continue to split and break before his charged hazel as the sweat runs off him. Nothing would discipline his heart when his body had already been filled with agony and he can hear the tide rolling upon itself, just like how the ocean breathes. Just like how the siren’s song calls upon him upon a memory of a memory, as he plunges into the lushing white caps of the water, rendered silver in midnight moonlight. 

Perhaps he was already at the gates of Limbo, becoming the oceans of **feral savagery**  and **death** itself. He’s  _blooming_ and  _wilting_ concurrently, with every pendulous moment between rebirth and death. He’s both  **happiness** and  **suffering** ; it’s only a matter of where he looks, what he perceives. When he perceives  **happiness** , there is too suffering, somewhere in the deep stretch of his spirit. The  **fretted black velvet** of the night fraught with scintillant as shard lights  _pulsate_ and  _shatter_ over the gentle exhale through the obstructing oxygen mask, Nigel’s mind in this fucking strange life collides as uncleanseable heaviness evokes demise as the pounding crushing defeat cuts, double-edged into his heart. 


	158. Chapter 158

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nigel's Death (canon meta)

Hurt comes at such a  _menacing_ and  _distasteful_ **granting of words**  and  **conclusions** after the convulsions have stopped.  _To fill his heart with ravaged love after words are thrust like daggers?_  Honestly, the pain of everything he consumes never leaves his hands free to think. The  **perspective** and  **magnitude** of immoral savagery lingers, without all the warm and therapeutic and lovable memory taking over even a vault of his cranium as his unconscious unfurls. 

He supposes, everything is about  _context_ and  _framing_ , yet **no twirling fates**  will tame the tigers growing in his heart, clawing with their flashing bright orbs, soaring through the imperceptible heights as daggers hone and sharpen,  **vitriol** making his hazel eyes glisten further like the cindercoated fuel. How effortless would it be to sever the rope around Charlie’s ankle, as the screaming silencee of the unfathomable depth of water below to ravage and consume him. All the **strangulating whips**  would wipe off the Atlas of his  _distress_ , yet he continues to wear the sickness. Nigel would  _not_ be standing amidst the midnight azure if he hadn’t been blessed with the psalms of angelic grace. And its memory foam softens his iron-soldered heart. 

And for the first time in Nigel’s lawless cunt life, the stubbornness corrupts with a sliver of humanity,  **a veil of shadow** lifting right off through the  _poignancy_ of his submission. 

_How long had he wasted his fucking time on these useless dreams?_ He’s so **caught up**  in the moment, so  **entranced** in the past that he couldn’t see the unfolding present. He wasn’t going to further fool himself when the stillness of the night was pierced by his own ravenously writhing mind, as sweat-slicked skin moved with such calculated measure as both his wrath and incomparable sorrow made the ambience heady with his charged flame. 

The weight of the  **collapsing dream**  as his irises would fade under the weight of severed consciousness - as his eyes would slowly lose their resilience, beneath the retained limerence of the cordial intensity of their charged kiss. He’d no longer able to toast to death, for there wouldn’t be no next time. 

Perhaps he’d meant to be like Romeo; as he lays here, dying on his back with the taste of poison stuck to his lips. He was more than ready to let himself become  _victimized_ beneath the **false promises** unfolding. How his every damned thing violently shakes, beneath the immovable surface of his menacing facade. 


	159. Chapter 159

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kenopsia: the eerie, forlorn atmosphere of a place that is usually bustling with people but is now abandoned and quiet

Lecherous eyes, all those thick-batting eyelashes without  _clemency_ for traitorous glances, a fixation without infatuation is  **the easiest**   **fabrication** people can submit themselves into. With their inflated ego trying to  _infiltrate_ a reinforced fortress that is potentially hazardous. His coldness is invasive, mindless as the blue spokes of moonlight rotates and reverberates into his being; without certainty, purpose and clarity. Time seems better measured by  _flashes_ of **attentiveness** and pressing state of  **quasi-oblivion** , as it becomes a tomb;  _a heavy inertia of time_. 

The club’s milieu already resembles the chronicle of his  **unbearably brutal destiny** ; _insatiable_ , yet  _downtrodden_ enough, breaking through the faintest of whispers, immediately becoming a shrieking caw as his ravenous, belligerent torrent of rage manifested intoo a furious storm. It still  _rages_ on through his throbbing veins and pulsating tissue beneath the ravaged, gnarled flesh as the heat clams and pools into his gut. He still recalls all the bravery of an embrace; tainted and soiled, trespassed and stomped on. Disregarded and drained beyond irrepairable, yet he’s stuffled and shoved back enough excruciating pain to rise like a Phoenix.

For he’s beyond the Atlas of his youth and have successfully fashioned his own  **supremacy** , the  _cultivated strength_ and  _charisma_. A dual accumulation of mesmerization through his rakish playfulness and the brooding aura of ruinous hurt exuding with such expansive heaviness that one’s ought to be burned if they are sensible and attentive enough. 

The moon may merrily cheer on the recklessness of youthful love, but love to him is this helpless melody of twittering instinct, rising like _fluttering plumage_ soaring through the skies with the futility of engaging in combat. How the dewdrop of his glassy limerence sparkles and bellows all the same; with its  **double-edged sword**  of love and hate coinciding to become both  _illogical_ and  _hypnotizing_. He still cannot help, but to bow at its  **immense, destructive beauty** ; and no fear of being crushed under its feet remains forgotten through the fuzzy conscious. 

The monochromatic of deadened air blossoms further with the colorful death laid waste upon the cemented walls, its  _flaking_ and  _crumbling_ light never enough in intensity stopped short. The  **poisonous flowers** may bloom from the spilled blood as all the caked rust reminds him a kind of  _ethereal life_  after death. Yet, without any ounce of restless rejuvenation taking the place beneath the spilling cacophony of visual and auditory sensations, his stagnant hazel watches a single black rose rising to melt his heart, even when the world outside blossoms once again in full of sunlight on resurgent force of energy.

How all the **schmatic loneliness**  engulfs all the echo, the club’s sound and color along with his own refflection. Without fluid thoughts and fluid voices as he feigns  _knowledge_ and _strength_ , fighting a **vast body**  stuck  _beyond_ dimension. 


	160. Chapter 160

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nigel's Recovery (canonical meta)

Such channel of platitudes does not get easier over time. The changing of it is quicker, farther apart now, but just as strong as the salt-brine of his  _blood_ and  _sweat_ effervesces, decaying under the piles of his desire. How they had become tongues watering a bouquet of flowers that never learned how to blossom. His own breaths had become the  **dreadful sound of notifications** ; of his  _non-lustrous life_ , of his dwindling potency and fueled energy, ring after ring after ring and he would go deaf trying to ignore the urgency. 

There is nothing  **poetic** about preventing his wounds to heal, just so he could have some blood to spill - with the sky spinning on its  _axis_ as his ensorcelled gaze would futilely try to reverse and hold the very sky still,  **suffocating** on his own shadow as he’d untie the chain of ego. Move away from the doom as he would reduce down to a fraction of himself, gradually _annihilating_ his blood cells. He’d rather abandon the **momentary silence**  that fills his solitude, as static slowly creeps in every corner of his  _consciousness_ , ripping his quiet rest.  **  
**

How the white space in his mind seems to pump and flow too fast and he haven’t slept properly in days because all he can fathom is  **oceans** , oceans that  _split_ ,  _disembogue_ , _parched dry_ before the unstable ground would  **swallow** and  **regurgitate** him. And now, the spilling void illuminates like diamonds, a flicker of the night growing ever luminescent as he drowns in Gabi’s milky way serenade. 

He refuses to shed his  **outer gases**  into interstellar space. But he would be one of those that occur in one in a thousand –  _the star whose mass is greater than about seven or eight times that of the Sun_  – dying a  **violent, dazzling explosion**  called a supernova. 

And he’d float, instead of  _descending_ very loudly in his ears as the echo in his heart also tumbles at the every edge with  **rapture** , as etched carvings continually paint the red, thick line. 

That must be what this is now, a fucking SUPERNOVA, with no orchestrated  **tragedies** and **viciousness** , no  **hollowness** or  **unbecoming**. All of his established belief, all of his grievings of the past as he had been guried in his own grave of confined mattress, and against his will, he’d let himself  _drown_ , and be readily  **devoured** , until he learns to breathe again.

It would be no Big Bang, instead, he would be left aware of a caving open inside him of soomething amiss in his part, feeling  **pain** , which could last a _full eternity_. All the whites may make him shiver, yet the **thrumming beats**  in his ears will emulate the beating, moving life beneath the plumage of strobing sunlight, as the Siren’s Call slowly relinquishes all the tense and taut control over his muscles and conscious. 

 

 


	161. Chapter 161

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am the villain of this story (post-canon)

The scent of his past-life remains etched so deeply in his lungs that he  _suffocates_ on it. Even now as it dwells, after what feels like so long for it was once that she was essential to him as the oxygen he breathes. No  **anger** nor  **self-pity** overwhelms him, yet he’s  _hot_ and  _tense_. And all remains wasted on his  _frozen heart_  and the world, like always, demanding  **warmth** passes on and on. 

He feels the  **loss** within his soul, but never did he regret it for the fact he remains  **incomplete** ; as the knifeblade penetrates his skin, feeling the pain, the gap, the  _loneliness_ in his heart, along with the  **agony** , alongside the  **illusionary euphoria**  running through his veins as slow as the unshed teeter of heavy tears, refusing to slowly drip down the contour of his cheekbone. 

He walks through the streets of his cramped alleyway of a sector, relishing the moments where his eyes catch a glimpse of his past, the years that had been lost within the sputters across his impastoed canvas. No recollections wash over his skin like a layer of warm saltwater, but as a stinging hornets’ stings; everything singes his throat and his mind floods with contempt. Like a forest barren of leaves, he’ll stay standing, but his  _foundation_ had long been dwindled. The wind may attempt to breathe  **undeath** into him; yet he could never forget their **unwritten story.**  

Brushstroke of the night becomes  **heart attacks** , as his head spins as he reach the  **vibrato** so clear that it’s  _foggy_ and  _indistinguishable_ somehow. How the world turns, as crystal ball of **carnal lust** and  **infatuated addiction** becomes the heat circulating within him. The dark cage of his mind, along with the slivering silver of moonligght leaves marks and expunged scars at the back of his head, as familiar bitter potency of alcohol and cocaine tickles his nostrils, along with the thumping palpitations of intermittent staccato of blaring music, resonating through crumbled walls of his diaphragm. 

His creased forehead used to be a  _puzzle_ for him to solve and he’s still too much of a professional with oozing  **overconfidence** and a swagger of a **bad boy persona** ; yet no zephyr passes between the quirk of his smiles as the blackest spot in his heart remains unerased, not even when the world strides and hurtles by, as no foot of his would pound against the dirt. His heart may race and he may try to chase everything he’s ever dreamed of, but the  _string_ was long snapped beneath his loathing and deprecation of the world, his own wretched fucking sord as he spats. A drink every day and night, a new drug every week - body weak and mind slowly decaying along with it. 

He may be the one making great decisions, but his vice appears in front of him and his mind incoherently allows  **detrimental thoughts** to enter. No knees would smak the unforgiving floor with a crack, but enough  **fissure** goes through the _hollow cavern_  of his brain, refusing to heal as Gabi claws her way back to his subconscious. 


	162. Chapter 162

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> between twilight and dusk; the day’s end, the glittery, transient echo when time and nature meet

The sky stirs, as does the emotion in his head and heart that rivals the  _storm gut-feeling_  of this external freezing turbulence. It  **escapes** ; casting dark spells, unkindness of ravens and rooks. Most predictable reaction would be him being confused and excited, as he collectively moves through his dark sky. Yet, the  **murmuration** of his colors flow, between all the **messy flashes**  of black. His own red and black  _cawing_ and  _barking_ without a care for the fucking peace he wasn’t graced as the clashing aura rips him apart. He wants the **wretched sensation** to melt away, yet just like his being, it remains frozen in time. As stagnant blood becomes mercury and disused, almost atrophied legs writhing in frustration as he suffers in  **absolute silence**. 

While no visible visualization  _manifests_ so, he’s never silent when he suffers. For there is only ease when he allows himself to let go of the pain, instead of holding on and retaining every tear and every feverous heat. It all starts by getting out of his own isolation and revealing the vulnerability to the world. For just like everyone else, he’s human and he knows while it’s perfectly okay to let everything all out, the contained myriads of memories prevent him to do so; because it’s much more frightening to exert exactly what he’s going through like an echo of his worldly perception as the rising current would consume and suffocate anyone who stepped in too close. 

Yet, his heart yearns for companionships in unknown places, somewhere outside the confinement of his  **affliction** , with unexpected people. Perhaps someday, he’d belong somewhere, but he knows by his heart, while his ribs don’t particularly feel like a cage, he would less likely to find permanent home and  _settle_ , as the colors descend in tandem with the  **downward spiral** of his thoughts. He’ll just coin it as ‘ _insanity_ ,’ for the sake of efficient  **simplification**. 

Perhaps he’d bleed, into his flesh, into his organs and inner workings, into the **flaring crescendo** of the rushing night as his immovable form becomes specks of  **protruding rust** beneath the beating spark of the diminishing fire. How the sun breaks and beats down from overhead; a steady, relentless force before the dry, cracked earth looms in the distance as the river of his gaze narrows. His imagination visualizes the lush forests, a vibrant powerful river, **hope**. 

Yet, the grass beneath his feet becomes sparse as the river shrunks vi _s_ ibly, despite the intensifying sun echoed through the fibers of his muscles and marrow. Perhaps he’d been left at a  **desert** , as the world full of dull shade of grey batters with both lights and shadoows of many degrees,  _accumulated_ by his own mind. How  **dirt** and  **debris** filter the radiance as another faulty and lengthy night begins with its bang. 


End file.
